


Gladiator: A love story

by Zara_Zee



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Anachronistic Language, Attempted Assault, Branding, Corporal Punishment, Fanciful Romanization of Names, M/M, Minor and SPN_Canon Character Deaths, Non-con touching, Non-graphic references to non-con and dub-con, References to Animal Deaths, References to Executions, Slavery, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-30 19:32:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11470233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zara_Zee/pseuds/Zara_Zee
Summary: As a second son, Jensen Akelsen of Cimbria will never inherit the family farm, so he travels to Rome with a trader to join theAuxilia—the non-citizen corps of the Roman Imperial Army. Unfortunately, Jensen’s travel companion proves less than trustworthy and he finds himself sold into slavery. Jensen’s fighting skills see him bought byLudus Armentarius, the training school which owns the most popular—and most terrifying—gladiator in all of Rome; the infamousColossus, Jared of Illyria.Bitterly angry and struggling to adjust, the very last thing Jensen expects to find in his new life is friendship, romance and love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I’ve borrowed the names and faces of certain actors without their knowledge or approval. Not a word of this is true; I’ve just got them playing parts. Written for fun, not profit.  
>  **A/N:** I did research. Lots of it. Having said which, this is still a “Hollywood” version of ancient Rome, which means that some liberties have been taken in the interests of the story. I’ve tried hard not to be inaccurate, but history-scholar-level accuracy is by no means guaranteed. Also, I’ve thrown in a few Latin words here and there (there are some translations at the end of the story), but I’ve anglicized the grammar in some cases. Apologies to any Latin grammar nerds who read this! 
> 
> The art for this story was made by evian_fork and it's wonderful! Please check out their art post [ HERE](http://evian-fork.livejournal.com/160831.html) and leave them some love!

 

 

Jensen is starting to think that he’s made a mistake.

Sure, the tall buildings with their columns and arches and marble-rendered facades are impressive, but there’s not enough countryside; not enough green; not enough _air_.

Rome is frighteningly crowded.  There are more people on its streets than Jensen has seen in his entire life and he has _never_ seen a horse-drawn chariot before. The noise is overwhelming. Livestock wander the streets; chickens, goats and pigs roam freely and Quintus’s trading party is forced to stop by a herd of cattle being driven to market.

Jensen wrinkles his nose and hitches his pack a little higher on his back. Rome stinks. The smell of shit is not unfamiliar to Jensen—his people are farmers and hunters—but his village is small; he’s never encountered it in such quantities before. Added to the stink of faeces is the sweet, metallic tang of freshly killed meat, which is mixed with the sharpness of unfamiliar herbs and spices and the wet stench of decaying garbage. The miasma of smells is an assault on Jensen’s senses and it makes him slightly nauseated.

“This way,” Quintus says gruffly in the Roman tongue.  Jensen isn’t fluent; but his people have been trading skins, furs and soapstone for luxury Roman goods since his great, great grandfather was a boy. And when dealing with travelling Roman merchants like Quintus and his brother Aurelius, some basic knowledge of the language makes life much easier.

“Go we first to Auxiliary Barracks? Or to bathing?” Jensen says in his basic Roman.

 “The Barracks,” Quintus says and Aurelius mutters something low under his breath which Jensen doesn’t understand.

Behind them, Quintus’s slave stumbles under the weight of the hand-barrow laden with furs and skins that he is pulling. Quintus turns on him and brings the lash down across his bare shoulders and Jensen winces. There are slaves in Cimbria, but they are considered valuable commodities and treated well. There are five slaves on Jensen’s family’s farm and he has never once taken a whip to any of them, nor seen his father or elder brother do so.

Quintus’s slave is named Scupicus, after the name of the Illyrian town he is from, although mostly Quintus merely calls him _Servus_ – Slave. His Roman is not even as good as Jensen’s and he seems reluctant to speak to a freeman. It hasn’t stopped Jensen trying though. He knows better than to offer Scupicus sympathy for the whipping (he doesn’t like sympathy) or to say anything to Quintus (they nearly came to blows the one and only time Jensen brought up the way he treats his slave).  Still, Jensen can’t help the scowl he directs at Quintus’s shoulders when the man strides back to his brother’s side.

When they get to the Auxilary Barracks, Jensen is left outside with Aurelius, Scupicus and the luggage while Quintus goes inside to speak with the man in charge. Jensen thinks this is a little odd as he is the one who wants to join Rome’s Auxiliary Army, but Aurelius tells him irritably that this is how things are done, that it is necessary for a Roman citizen to make the approach on Jensen’s behalf.  So Jensen settles. He looks at the stone building with its large cobblestoned courtyard, he notes the raised dais in the center of the courtyard and wonders at the poles with iron chains attached that it carries. Behind him, Scupicus is coughing quietly and clearing his throat. When Jensen drops back beside him and cocks his head, Scupicus whispers, “ _Non in exercitu_. _Servus Mercator_. _Venalitii_.”

Jensen’s blood goes cold. He knows more than enough Roman to understand what he has just been told.

“ _Venalitii_ ,” Scupicus repeats under his breath. “ _Vado. Curro.”_

Slave Trader. Go. Run.

There must be some rational explanation, Jensen thinks. Perhaps Quintus wishes to purchase a new slave before taking him to the Barracks. But then…why did both he and Aurelius tell him that these were the barracks of the Auxiliary Army?   Jensen frowns. He is a freeman, the son of a Clan Chief. His people have not been conquered in war; his family does not owe Quintus a debt. All he asked was to be allowed to travel with Quintus and his trading party when they returned to Rome. All he wanted was to join Rome’s Auxiliary Army, to put his fighting skills to good use, to see the world, to seek fortune and glory.

As a second son, Jensen will never inherit the family farm, but he is good with the sword, the axe, the spear and the bow, so the _Auxilia_ —the non-citizen corps of the Roman Imperial Army—seemed like a good place to test his mettle. It would also provide him with the opportunity to become a Roman citizen after his period of service and to earn his own plot of land.

It seems, perhaps, that his chosen travel companions are less than trustworthy.

Jensen starts for the door of the building. “Quintus?” he shouts. He continues in his own tongue. “What is going on? What are you doing?”

Aurelius tries to haul him back, but Jensen breaks his hold easily and dances out of his reach. The door into the building opens and Quintus steps outside with another man. The other man looks Jensen up and down, just exactly as a merchant would assess some goods he may purchase.

“What’s going on, Quintus?” Jensen demands again. Aurelius steps up behind him and puts a restraining hand on his upper arm. Jensen could shake him off, but for now he leaves him where he is.

Quintus’s smile is smarmy, but his eyes are cruel. “Be quiet, Fool,” he says in Jensen’s language. “The General here is trying to decide whether to take you.”

Jensen shakes his head. “ _Non is Dux_ ,” he says. Not a General. “ _Venalitii_.”

The other man—the merchant—grins. “Smart,” he says, speaking slowly in Roman, clearly wanting Jensen to understand. “And pretty too.”

Jensen scowls. “ _Liber_ ,” he says, pointing at his own chest. Free. “ _Non venale_.” Not for sale.

The merchant laughs and says something to Quintus. Jensen can’t follow his rapid-fire Roman, but he thinks he picks out the words ‘strong’, ‘breaking’, ‘cock’ and ‘lips’.

The merchant regards Jensen again and this time his gaze is much more calculating. “ _Quadraginta_ _millia_ _Denarii_ ,” he says, turning to Quintus.

“ _Vendidit_!” Quintus says with a smug grin. _Sold._

“ _Non venale_!” Jensen says, outraged, although the trader in him is quietly impressed at the price. Forty thousand _Denarii_ is a good price for a new, untrained slave.

Quintus shrugs. “ _Vendidit_.”

Jensen thinks it might be time to take Scupicus’s advice. He breaks Aurelius’s hold on him, elbows him in the gut and runs.

The merchant shouts and before Jensen can escape out into the streets the front gate is slammed shut and a heavy iron door at the rear of the courtyard opens. A dozen armed men pour out and Jensen swears and turns to face them.

He drops his pack and pulls out his axe. The pack may perhaps have shielded his back, but keeping it on would lose him valuable manoeuvrability. Jensen widens his feet and shifts into a fighting stance. They rush him all at once, but Jensen is able to duck and weave and not let them surround him, even managing to get a couple of good gashes in.  They’re not good fighters, these men, and Jensen is able to cut his opponents down by half. They’re not dead; just down and out as far as this fight is concerned. The remaining opponents are wary of him now and Jensen is starting to hope that he might be able to take his pack and run; is looking for an opportunity to do exactly that, when a further two dozen men come running through the door, which clangs shut behind them.

Fuck. Someone had the forethought to send for reinforcements.

The appearance of the new fighters rallies the rest of the guards and Jensen figures that the odds are definitely not in his favor anymore.  Still, he makes them work for it.

Jensen doesn’t stop fighting until he’s on his belly with four men holding him down. A fifth man pulls his head up by his hair and puts a sword to his throat.  Jensen stills immediately, his eyes searching out Scupicus, because he figures he may as well be looking at someone he likes when he dies. He waits for the sharp sting and the warm wet gush of blood from his neck, but it doesn’t come.  Instead he’s hauled to his feet and briskly manacled. The merchant comes and stands before him, too close, and Jensen’s nostrils flare at the cabbage-and-vinegar smell of him.

“Pity,” the merchant says. “You would have fetched a high price as a bed slave. But you are too dangerous.”

At least, that’s what Jensen thinks he says. He doesn’t understand every word, but that seems to be the gist of it.

“We Cimbri are warriors,” Jensen says, his head held high. “Rome knows this.”

The merchant stares at him for a long moment and then turns to Quintus and says something that has the Trader spluttering with outrage.  Jensen hopes that the merchant has reneged on his agreement to buy Jensen.

There’s a lot of arguing back and forth and Jensen listens hard and tries to understand. It soon becomes clear that the sale is still on; they’re just haggling over price because Jensen’s fighting prowess has made him a lot harder to sell.

Eventually Quintus throws his hands up in the air and in the sentence that follows Jensen hears the word _ludus_ , which he thinks means school, and the word _gladiator_ and he’d have to have been living under a rock not to know what _that_ means. His blood freezes in his veins and he starts to struggle, but his captors merely tighten their grip until he can almost feel finger-shaped bruises blossoming.

Quintus and the merchant shake hands and the merchant turns back to Jensen and smiles, a cruel self-satisfied smile.

The merchant says something to the guards and they manhandle him toward the big iron door. Jensen struggles against them the whole way and eventually gets a fist to the jaw for his troubles. It leaves him momentarily disoriented.

The door is opened by a gaunt, grim-faced man and Jensen’s eyes widen as he takes in the inner courtyard, which is filled with iron cages and wooden pens, most of which contain people. The gaunt man manacles Jensen’s wrists and ankles and then drags him though the courtyard, past the cages and pens, and Jensen is astounded by the sheer numbers of slaves awaiting sale. He can’t help his curiosity, turning his head this way and that, which earns him a slap to the head and a barked command, “ _Inclinaverit oculos_!”

Jensen knows that _oculos_ means eyes and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that his escort doesn’t want him looking around. He lowers his gaze and his captor grunts approvingly. Still, Jensen is nothing if not observant and he has already noticed that the people in the wooden pens look dirty and broken. They sit quietly, accepting their lot. In contrast, the people in the iron cages grip the bars or pace as far as their manacled feet will allow, scowling and angry.  There are armed guards stationed at various intervals around the place, more of them near the iron cages than the wooden pens.

Jensen is taken into a small room, where another man sits behind a wooden desk. The door is locked. A guard is stationed outside.

Aside from the desk, the room’s most prominent features are a waist-high stone bench and several walls of shelves, on which there are numerous clay pots and jugs, several mortars and pestles, various frightening looking metal implements and quite a number of drying plants.

“Julius,” the man behind the desk greets Jensen’s captor.

The gaunt man—Julius—unshackles him.

“This is mistake,” Jensen tells the man behind the desk as his handcuffs come off. “I am free man. Quintus can’t sell me.”

Julius shrugs. “It’s done.” He turns to the man at the desk. “All yours _Medici_ ,” he says, followed by another burst of rapid-fire Latin that Jensen doesn’t follow.

The _medici_ gets up from behind the desk and comes to stand before Jensen. And then he tells Jensen, in slow clear Latin, to take off his clothes. 

Jensen freezes. His heart pounds and his belly flops and he gapes at the _medici_ in humiliated horror.

Julius takes a flogger from the belt at his waist—nine tails of braided leather—and twirls it in his hands.

The _medici_ repeats his command.

Jensen takes off his clothes with shaking fingers; first his sandals, then his tunic, and finally his loin cloth.  The _medici_ twirls a finger and Jensen dutifully turns in a circle, his face flushing scarlet.

The _medici_ motions to the stone bench and tells Jensen to get on the examination table. 

Jensen swallows. He wants to fight and he wants to run, but he knows he wouldn’t get far and he’s sure the consequences would be severe. So he co-operates. At first he just has to sit on the exam table. The _medici_ inspects his teeth and his eyes. He turns his head this way and that. He runs his fingers all over Jensen’s body, prodding and poking, lifting and pulling at his limbs. He spends some time poking at Jensen’s legs and seems a little concerned that they aren’t entirely straight.

The _medici_ tells Jensen to lie down on his back and when he reaches for Jensen’s cock, Jensen tries to push him away. “No,” he says. “Don’t.”

Julius steps forward and brings the flogger down hard across Jensen’s thighs. It stings like a swarm of wasps and leaves him pink-striped and wincing.

The _medici_ takes hold of Jensen’s cock. He runs his fingers over it, he pulls back the foreskin, and he pulls open his slit and prods, before moving to exam Jensen’s balls, rolling them in between his fingers. Jensen stares at the ceiling and plays a fervent game of anywhere but here.    

“Pull your knees back,” the _medici_ says.

Jensen frowns and blinks, not understanding what the man wants.

“Put your forearms under your knees,” the _medici_ says, slowly and clearly, “and pull your knees back toward your shoulders.”

“Why?” Jensen asks, and he hates that his voice is shaking, just a little.

“Do as you’re told!” says Julius, slapping the flogger across Jensen’s thighs again.

Something in Jensen snaps. He kicks out and sends the _medici_ flying to the floor, and then spins himself off the table and attacks Julius, lashing out with punches and kicks that drive the man backwards. He hears the door open, a muted curse, and then Jensen is grabbed from behind. He throws his head back and connects with something solid. There’s a pained cry and then there are more hands on him and he’s wrestled to the ground with a knee in his back and his groin crushed painfully into the stone floor.

“String him up,” says Julius.

Jensen is hauled to his feet by the guards. His wrists are tied together with rope and the rope is hung from a hook in the ceiling. His feet are bound and one of the guards fixes a lead weight to the rope around his feet. The other guard pulls on the rope attached to the ceiling and Jensen is hauled up, so that his toes are barely touching the ground.

Jensen closes his eyes and grits his teeth and a moment later the flogger sets fire to his ass.

The whipping is painful, but mercifully fast. The lash falls no more than thirty times, across Jensen’s ass and the back of his thighs. He is able to stay mostly silent and although tears threaten, they do not fall.

Julius moves away and sets the flogger down and the _medici_ steps up behind Jensen.

He runs his fingers over the welts on Jensen’s ass and then grasps his inflamed cheeks and pulls them apart, exposing his asshole. Jensen bites back a cry of shame.  A dry finger rubs across the puckered skin and Jensen can’t help his attempt to lurch forward. He’s immediately hauled back into position and the _medici’s_ insistent finger presses inside of him.

“ _Puer delicates_ ,” the _medici_ says. “Have you been penetrated _here_ ,” his finger pushes in harder, “before?”

“No,” Jensen stutters.

The door opens then and Quintus walks in with the _venalitii._ Jensen wishes the ground would open up and swallow him.

The _medici_ withdraws his finger and wipes it on a cloth.

The _venalitii_ and Julius have a short conversation in rapid-fire Latin. Jensen thinks he hears the word for ‘virgin’, which he is not. Jensen has shared the pleasures of the flesh with several girls since he came of age. Although that’s probably not what the _medici_ means. Jensen isn’t entirely naïve. He knows that it’s socially acceptable for Roman men to sexually penetrate other men. It’s _not_ acceptable to be the one penetrated though, and any man who submits to sexual penetration immediately loses all social standing. Slaves, of course, don’t have any social standing to lose, which means, Jensen swallows, that once he is sold, it will be perfectly acceptable for his master to fuck him.

The _venalitii_ comes to stand in front of Jensen.

“How old are you, _Cimbri_?” he asks in slow clear Latin.

“I have seen eighteen summers,” Jensen replies.

The men all stare at him and Jensen can feel his entire body flushing with shame.

“I can think of several Senators who would pay handsomely for this one,” Julius says finally. “Who would _relish_ the fight in him.”

“I’ll kill anyone who tries to…to _touch_ me,” Jensen says.

The _medici_ strokes his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps if we castrated him?” he muses.

“I’ll kill _you_ first,” Jensen snarls.

Julius brings the lash down across Jensen’s shoulders and Jensen grits his teeth and glares, his eyes filled with murder.

“Put him in with the new Germanian slaves,” the Venalitii says. “Marcus is coming in to look at them in the morning. Perhaps he’ll take this one too.”

Jensen is unhooked from the ceiling and given a white loin cloth to put on. He winces as it touches his abused flesh, but mostly, he’s just relieved to be covered up.

Quintus and the _Venalitii_ begin to haggle over price again as Jensen is re-shackled and led out into the inner courtyard. The last words he hears are, “If Marcus takes him; if he survives his first fight…”

Misha hits a particularly tight knot in Jared’s shoulder and he groans appreciatively and drools just a little on the massage bench.  “Oh yeah,” he says, “Harder, Misha. Please.”

Misha sniggers and Jared’s eyes roll behind his closed eyelids.  He has enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh with the pretty blue-eyed service slave before, but in their encounters, the only one pleading for _harder, faster, deeper_ has been Misha.  

“Stop thinking about my _sword_ ,” Jared grumbles, “and concentrate on my _sword-arm_. We have the Emperor’s games in three months and I need to be at my best.”

“Your sword has always been the best,” Misha says impishly. “You wield it with such skill, thrusting so fiercely, burying it to the hilt, time and time again, making men moan—”

“Enough, Misha!”

Misha is smirking, Jared is sure of it.

“After I have finished your massage,” Misha says innocently, “would you like me to polish your sword?”

Jared doesn’t reply.

By the time the massage is finished, his muscles feel like poured liquid and his manhood is no longer merely _half_ hard. Misha offers him a happy ending, but Jared turns him down.

Misha is easy and convenient, but sometimes Jared wants more than that, stupid given that he’s as much a slave as Misha and should be smart enough to take his pleasure whenever and wherever he’s lucky enough to get it. But Jared has freedom in his sights now—in four months it will have been five years since he was taken as a prisoner of war and sold to the _Ludus Armentarius_ as a slave. What that means, according to the rules of this particular _Ludus_ is that Jared will soon be allowed to buy his freedom. And as one of Rome’s most popular and successful gladiators he has easily earned enough prize money to do so, and then some. 

Following his massage, Jared heads over to the _caldarium_. He might be a slave. He might live in a prison fortress and sleep in a cell, but he can’t honestly say that his life doesn’t have its perks. He gets three square meals a day, has free access to the _Ludus’s_ baths and steam rooms, gets regular massages, top notch medical treatment, and he always has a roof over his head and a comfortable straw mattress to lie down on at the end of the day. His position as _Primus Palus_ also earns him extra privileges; a single cell, which is quite well furnished, and a lot of leeway with the _doctores_ and the guards.

In return for all this luxury, all he has to do is fight in two or three tournaments a year.

Jared strips off his tunic and his _subligar_ and slips into the hot water, nodding in greeting at Ty and Malik who are already soaking in the large communal bath.

It’s true that the gladiatorial arenas see a lot of death; but those who die are mostly condemned criminals or new recruits. Only rarely does a trained professional gladiator die. They might lose a fight now and again, but they’re far too valuable to be slaughtered indiscriminately. Gladiator games are big business.

Jared may be a slave, but to his owner he has worth. Jared’s current living conditions are the best he’s ever had. Of course, it would be nice if he could stroll out of the training compound’s front doors and go into town; it would be nice if he wasn’t locked into his cell at night, but the day when he _can_ do those things is coming fast.

“Did you hear?” Ty says.

“Hear what?” Jared stretches his legs out before him.

“We’re getting new recruits.”

Jared shrugs. “It happens.”

“I heard they’re Germanian prisoners of war.”

Jared reaches for the scented oil and begins to rub it into his body. “They’ll be good fighters then,” he says.

Jared actually prefers when Marcus buys battle-seasoned warriors for his _Ludus_. He doesn’t like seeing his comrades die, even if they’re people he’s only known for a few weeks. Despite his arena reputation as a giant brute, Jared is actually a friendly, caring guy. He’s usually a little standoffish with the new recruits until he’s seen enough of their skills to know they’re not going to die on him the first time out, but once he’s comfortable they’re going to last more than a fight or two, Jared is sociable and welcoming. Malik has said, more than once, that there are no strangers in Jared’s life, only friends he hasn’t gotten to know yet. His mama used to say the same thing. Jared wonders if she’s still alive.

As Jared moves from the _caldarium_ to the _frigidarium_ , he wonders whether there’s any point getting to know this new batch of recruits. After all, he’s going to be leaving soon.

Why get to know someone when they won’t have an opportunity to be friends for long?

Jensen is pushed into an iron cage with six other men, all big and glaring, two of whom have hair that is yellower than his own. Jensen’s right leg is chained to a ring on the floor and Julius exits the cell. 

Jensen turns and grips the cell’s bars and Julius smacks Jensen’s fingers with the flogger and tells him to back away from the bars. He does so, shaking out his stinging fingers. Jensen puts his back against the far wall of the cage, keeping his cellmates in his peripheral vision.  He kind of wants to cry, but Jensen will die before he shows any weakness. Rage seems a much stronger emotion than despair, so that’s all he allows himself to feel. Jensen promises himself that one day he will catch up with Quintus and when he does, he will make the man wish he’d never been born.

One of the blond-haired men speaks to Jensen and he recognizes the language as Cheruscian, but it’s not a language he speaks. He says as much in his own tongue and the man sneers and spits out, “ _Cimbri_ ” in a tone that suggests he’s not a fan of Jensen’s people. 

One of the man’s friends puts a hand to the man’s shoulder and speaks softly to him and he deflates a little. He turns away from Jensen and shuffles further away.

The other man moves slowly toward Jensen, with his hands outstretched in the universal gesture of ‘I’m holding no weapons, you can see my hands, you have nothing to fear.’ Jensen will reserve judgement on that. He pulls himself up straight and stares at the approaching man.

Like Jensen, all of the other men are chained to the ring in the center of the floor. The others are all gathered together on the far side of the cage, which Jensen estimates is about ten feet wide, six feet high and six feet deep.

The man stops before him. He taps his own chest and says, “Erik.”

He then points at Jensen and looks at him expectantly.

“Jensen.”

Erik says something very slowly in Cheruscian and then sighs, frustrated, when Jensen just shakes his head and replies in his own language that he doesn’t understand.

Erik tries some halting Roman. “Night cold,” he says, stumbling over the words. He gestures to himself and his friends. “Warm.”

Jensen looks hard at him and then casts a suspicious eye over the rest of the men. They’re all a lot older than him, battle-scarred and weather-beaten. Jensen doesn’t think there’s an unbroken nose among them. If he’s understanding correctly, Erik is suggesting that when night falls and it gets cold Jensen should go and huddle with the Cheruscians for warmth. But Jensen doesn’t know these men. And he’s not feeling very trusting right now. After all, he trusted Quintus, with disastrous results. And what if they want some sort of payment for keeping him warm? The memory of fingers poking at his ass is still fresh and Jensen isn’t stupid. He’s in a really vulnerable position right now.

The man who sneered at Jensen earlier says something that makes all the others laugh. There’s some back and forth banter among them and a lot of raucous laughter and then Erik turns around and shouts at them and they all shut up.

One of the guards comes and bangs on the cage bars and tells them to behave themselves. When he’s gone, Erik turns back to Jensen.

“Safe,” he says in Roman.

Jensen raises an eyebrow.

Erik looks uncomfortable. “Safe,” he repeats, gesturing at himself and the other men. “No…fuck.”

Jensen’s pretty sure his face just went bright red. Had it really been that obvious what he was worried about?

“I would kill anyone who tried,” Jensen says in the Roman tongue, his voice low and furious.

He’s not sure Erik understands though, because a pleased expression spreads across the man’s face.

“You Roman good,” he says.

And so Jensen spends his first night as a slave huddled in the middle of a group of Cheruscian warriors trying to teach them Roman. It’s all a little surreal.

Eventually the group settles down to sleep, but Jensen just…can’t. There’s too much adrenaline in his system. His ass and thighs still hurt from the whipping and he’s so angry that if he thinks about his situation too much he starts to shake with repressed fury.

Still, the first night could’ve been worse and he’s grateful that he hasn’t had to spend it fighting off rapists.

If the muffled cries and grunts that he can hear coming from some of the other cages are anything to go by, not everyone has been as fortunate.

To Jensen’s horror, the guards only seem to intervene if it looks like someone is going to go too far and damage the merchandise. And just like that, he is enraged all over again by his new status as a _thing_. Someone’s _property_.

Erik pats his shoulder comfortingly. “Safe,” he says.

Jensen scowls. “I’m not scared,” he says, his voice low and harsh. “I’m _angry_. I’m a freeman. I was tricked. Betrayed. I shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be a slave.”

Erik seems to understand the sentiment, if not all the words. He puts a hand to Jensen’s chest, right over his heart. “Angry here,” he says. “Here,” he circles his own face and then mimes a calm smile.

Jensen snorts. “Fake it ‘til I make it, huh?”

Erik smiles a genuine smile. “Sleep now.”

Surprisingly, Jensen does.

\--

They get porridge for breakfast, slopped into wooden bowls and served to them through the bars of the cage via Erik who takes each bowl and hands it out. Some of the other cages are a free-for-all of fighting over the food, but not Jensen’s cage. Jensen gleaned, from the little communication he and the Cheruscians have been able to manage, that they are all that is left of a fighting unit and that Erik is their commanding officer. He’s doing an excellent job of maintaining discipline and Jensen is continuously thankful that he was put in their cage.

Later that morning Jensen and the Cheruscians are led from their cage into the display area out the front.

Jensen guesses that the man interested in buying them is the somewhat portly man with the thinning dark hair; he’s surrounded by attendants and he’s barking orders at everyone, even the slave trader. By Jensen’s standards he’s quite short, although he’s fairly average for a Roman. Jensen thinks the slave trader calls the man _Armentarius_ , which he _thinks_ means Shepherd. Somehow Jensen doubts that this man is a shepherd.

Eventually Jensen and the Cheruscians are lined up to the buyer’s satisfaction and he paces in front of them, inspecting them as a military leader might inspect his men. He stops in front of Jensen and scoffs, raising one eyebrow in disdain. The slave trader, who is pacing just a step behind the buyer lets loose with a burst of rapid-fire Roman which Jensen struggles to follow. He understands enough words to surmise that the trader is telling the buyer that Jensen kicked ass yesterday and very nearly escaped. The buyer rubs at his chin thoughtfully, his expression morphing from scorn into grudging respect.

Jensen isn’t surprised when the buyer selects him to go up against one of his own guards in demonstration. Jensen more than holds his own. He’s quick, lithe, smart and stronger than most people expect, given his youth. He’s also skilled with a sword and when the fight concludes, he sees that the buyer is impressed with him.

Erik and his men are put through their paces and once that’s done, the buyer says he’ll take all of them, but not at the price the merchant is offering. They begin to haggle and Jensen and the Cheruscians are shackled to the dais and left surrounded by guards as the buyer and the merchant head inside to finalize the sale.

The guards begin to chat as soon as their bosses have left and Jensen soon learns that the buyer is Marcus Amerntarius, owner of _Ludus Armentarius_ , one of the most prominent gladiator schools in all of Rome.

It seems that the Cheruscians have also been following the conversations going on around them and if nothing else, they do seem to have understood _Ludus Armentarius,_ if their own sudden whispered conversations are anything to go by.

“ _Ludus Armentarius_ ,” Erik murmurs, impressed. “ _Colossus_.”

One of the buyer’s guards laugh. “Are you scared, Slave? Colossus is brutal and ferocious. He will snap you like a twig and feast on your flesh!”

All of the guards laugh as if this is a great joke.

Erik doesn’t understand, but Jensen does. _Colossus_ means enormous. Apparently they are soon to be at the mercy of a brutal giant, perhaps even cannibalised by him in the arena for the amusement of the Roman people.

Jensen swallows hard.

\--

Jensen and the Cheruscians are chained together and jogging behind their buyer’s chariot, surrounded by guards. The pace isn’t fast and thankfully the leg chains have been left off, so Jensen finds that he can look around a little as they move through the streets. For all that it’s crowded, Rome is surprisingly orderly and, for the most part, her people look healthy and well-fed. There are slaves everywhere, running around in their plain white tunics or loincloths, unobtrusively doing their masters’ bidding. Jensen hadn’t noticed them before, which he supposes is kind of the point, but now that he must count himself among their number, he sees them.

They stop outside a heavy iron gate, which opens at a signal from their buyer.

“Welcome to _Ludus Armentarius_ ,” the buyer calls as they all jog through the gate, “your new home for the next five years—or until Death comes to take you in the arena.”

The gate clangs shut behind them with a finality that makes Jensen flinch.   

He can’t quite believe that this is real; that it’s really happening to him.

It’s like a nightmare that he can’t wake up from and Jensen wants to wake up so very badly.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Malik’s _rudis_ clashes heavily with his own, but Jared holds his position and uses his height and greater body weight to push his opponent backward; to push his sword up, so that it’s no longer providing a guard. And then Jared lunges and plunges his own sword straight toward Malik’s abdomen, stopping when the wooden tip touches the leather of his opponent’s _cingulum_ , the wide leather belt which protects a gladiator’s waistline from injury.

“And so I die,” Malik says soulfully, before slumping dramatically to the ground.

Jared rolls his eyes.

In all honesty he hadn’t liked the Numidian when they’d first met; hadn’t been sure how to take the man’s uptight, brittle attitude. He’d soon come to appreciate Malik’s sarcastic sense of humor and to understand his anger; being torn away from your wife and children for no better reason than a party of Roman slavers found you exotic was truly monstrous. Life in Rome has been so very different for Malik too. Not just the language, but the foods, and, well, _everything_ really. Even his Gods are different. Jared often sees him praying to them and they have talked a little about his beliefs. Jared has learned about Malik’s wife Dihya and his son and daughter too. He knows that Malik dreams of returning to them when his five years are up.

“Colossus!”

Jared turns at the sound of the Lanista’s voice.

“Yessir?”

The Lanista beckons him over with an impatient wave and Jared jogs toward him.

“If you make it through the upcoming Games,” Lanista Marcus says, “then your five years will be up.”

Jared offers another _yessir_.

“I’m hoping,” Marcus continues, “that when that time comes, you’ll accept a training position on my staff.”

Jared won’t. Like Malik, he dreams of home. Of buying a small plot of land and living off it; of retiring completely from the world of fighting and the intrigues of Roman society.

“And so,” the Lanista continues, “I’d like you to help out with our latest recruits. They’re enjoying the baths now, but I want you to come along and help the _doctores_ decide which type of gladiator each of them should be.”

Jared doesn’t say no, because as of this moment, Lanista Marcus Armentarius still owns him and _no_ is not an option for a slave.

Still, Jared is not fond of changes to the routine of his everyday life. Anything out of the ordinary brings with it the potential for disaster. Jared may well have fame (or infamy at and rate) and fortune, but he is still a slave and subject to the whims of his master and those in positions of power in Rome.

He has no choice in the matter though, so Jared stows his practice weapon and follows dutifully behind his master, with a healthy degree of trepidation.

The baths are awe-inspiring. Jensen has never before seen their like and nor have Erik’s men if their excited chatter is anything to go by.

They start off in a cold room which has a tank of cold water in it. After a quick dip in that, they are moved on to a warm room with a tepid pool, where they bathe and splash each other, laughing and chattering, before being moved to a heated room with a hot water pool in it. Here, they are told to rub themselves with scented oils and then shown how to scrape all the dirt off themselves with a special knife called a _strigil_. Afterward they all jump into the cold water pool again, before being led out of the baths, naked and chained together, into some kind of waiting room.

One at a time they’re each unshackled and led into an adjoining room. Jensen is last in line and by the time he’s waiting alone, his jaw is clenched and he is shivering, not because he’s cold, but because each man who has been taken into the next room has, at some point, screamed.

It’s actually kind of fun, putting the new recruits through their paces and trying to figure out whether they’d be best with one sword or two, with a spear, or a net, or a bow. The men all fight well and seem used to combat, but so far none of them provide much of a spectacle. Jared is each man’s final fight and, as well as testing their skill, his job is to tease an entertaining performance out of them.  Unfortunately, these men are merely soldiers, with no flair for showmanship. Still, Jared is enjoying the challenge. It’s fun.

And then they get to the part where the _medici_ brands the new recruits. That’s not fun. Jared remembers the shocking, searing pain all too well and he can’t help avert his eyes every time the _medici_ picks up the branding iron, his remorse rising with each mark burned indelibly into flesh. 

By the time they bring in the last recruit, Jared is feeling guilty for his part—however small and unwanted—in the final steps of enslaving these men. He can barely bring himself to look up when the last man walks into the room. The trainer beside him, though, makes a small snort of derision and Jared’s head comes up almost of its own accord. His eyes settle on the young man walking to the center of the room. He walks purposefully, with his head up, his eyes taking in everything around him.

When he gets to the middle of the room he stops and waits and Jared can’t help his sharp intake of breath, because honestly, this man is beautiful. He can’t be very old; twenty summers at the most, Jared guesses; but his eyes are wise. His body is beautifully sculpted and he is tall. Not quite as tall as Jared and not quite as muscular either, but Jared can see the makings of a remarkable man inside the not-quite-a-boy before them. Still, this last recruit is so very pretty that Jared doesn’t understand why he wasn’t sold to some rich senator as a bed slave.

He soon learns why. The recruit is lethal. He excels at every weapon they give him and picks up fighting techniques quickly, even those he has never seen before. The trainer beside Jared, the one who had scoffed derisively at the recruit’s prettiness, has changed his tune completely. Finally, when Jared gets to spar with the recruit, he is both pleased and impressed at how competent his opponent is. He’s lithe and fast, and he’s smart. Jared tells him, as they duel, that the Fights are a spectacle; a performance, as much as real combat, and the recruit adjusts, his actions becoming bigger and more dramatic. He puts on a show, making it look good. Jared smiles and nods his approval. This guy’s going to be a star, he can tell.

The pretty recruit lasts far longer against Jared than any of the day’s other recruits, but Jared is eventually able to knock him to the ground. The recruit then manages to leg Jared and bring him down too, but Jared simply rolls on top of him and uses his greater body weight to keep him pinned.

Jared beams. “You’re magnificent.”

The recruit’s eyes—a beautiful bright green, Jared notices—widen.

Jared manfully resists the urge to rub against the man below him and he doesn’t lean down and kiss him either, despite the fact that he really, really wants to.

The man’s pupils dilate and Jared doesn’t think it’s arousal causing the reaction.

“I’m Jared,” he says.

The recruit swallows, Adam’s Apple rippling. “Jensen,” he says.

His voice is much deeper than Jared imagined it would be.

Jared gets to his feet and reaches a hand down, helping pull Jensen to his.

“Magnificent,” he says again, “a truly capable fighter. And a real showman too. They’re going to love you.”

Jensen actually blushes.

“Come here, Recruit,” says the _medici_.

And once again, Jared feels like shit. The _medici_ is preparing the branding iron.

Something of what he’s feeling must show in his face, because Jensen lays a hand on his arm.

“Should I run?” the recruit asks, quite seriously.

“You wouldn’t get far,” Jared replies.

He turns to face Jensen. “This is going to hurt,” he says. “We’ve all had to go through it,” he points to his own brand and Jensen’s eyes widen again.

“No,” he says and backs away.

“Hold him, Colossus,” says the _medici_.

“I’m sorry,” Jared reaches out for Jensen. “They’ll hurt you in worse ways if you don’t co-operate.”

Jensen shuffles backward.

“Please,” Jared says beseechingly, giving Jensen his most imploring look.

“Don’t make me help them hurt you worse,” Jared adds.

Jensen capitulates at that, he stops moving backwards and slumps, allowing Jared to grip him by the arm and lead him to the _medici_.

Jared can feel Jensen trembling as the _medici_ readies the branding iron.

With all of the others, one of the guards had simply held onto the recruit while the _medici_ applied the brand, but Jared can’t bring himself to let go of Jensen, so he simply shakes his head when a guard approaches.

“Put your left hand on the table and hold onto me,” he tells Jensen, as the _medici_ pulls the iron from the fire.

The house brand is actually quite striking. It’s an entwined M and A with a gladius through the middle. Jared likes it from a purely artistic perspective, but he would rather it wasn’t embedded in his skin.

Jensen’s grip on Jared’s forearm tightens and he leans into him. Jared clasps him firmly as the brand descends.

“No!” Jensen tries to pull away, but he can’t break Jared’s hold.

“Look at me,” Jared says and Jensen’s eyes dart up to his just as the brand sinks into the flesh of his hand.

Jensen’s cry of pain is anguished but muted. His eyes fill with tears.

“One more,” Jared murmurs and he feels Jensen stiffen.

The _medici_ gets a new iron out of the fire and turns toward Jensen.

“Keep your eyes on me,” Jared says, wrapping an arm around Jensen’s torso and holding him tightly.

The brand is applied to Jensen’s right hip and he buries his head against Jared’s chest as he cries out, the agony obvious in his tone.

“All finished,” Jared says. “You did so well, Jensen, and it’s all over now.”

Jensen looks up, his face tracked with tears.

“Hurts,” he says.

“I know,” Jared says. “They’ll give you a salve for it. Use it every day, several times a day, it will help.”

“Colossus!” Lanista Marcus calls and Jared steps away from Jensen, reluctantly.

Jensen startles. “Colossus?” he says.

Jared rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah. It’s my stage name. You know, for the Arena.”

Jensen frowns. “Mostly is performance,” he says, repeating Jared’s earlier words. “ _Teater?_ ”

Jared nods. “People _do_ die,” he says, “but mostly only the condemned. Not us. Not very often. We’re too valuable.”

“Colossus,” Lanista Marcus calls again, glaring.

“Sorry, Sir,” Jared jogs to his master with a last long, lingering look at Jensen.

“What do you think?” Marcus says impatiently, “apart from the obvious fact that you want to stuff your dick in him?”

Jared blushes. “He’s a great fighter. And he understands that this is a performance as well as a fight. He was a good choice.”

The Lanista nods thoughtfully and then eyes Jared speculatively. “Let’s see how he settles in. I’ve got some ideas on how best to use him,” he elbows Jared jovially. “Ideas that I think you’ll like, Colossus.”

\--

If his life were a story, Jared would have left the session where he helped evaluate the new recruits with Jensen in tow. He would have spent every waking moment getting to know the man and so much the better if he could have talked Jensen into sharing his bed.

Sadly, his life isn’t a ballad or a play, so Jared goes back to his usual daily routine and Jensen goes into the new recruit dormitory and begins life as a _novicius._

Life as a _novicus_ is…Jared hesitates to use the word _hard_. His life as a soldier had been much harder. But it _was_ an adjustment. The _novicus’s_ aren’t allowed to speak to the other gladiators, they’re not allowed to speak at all during meal times, they’re kept shackled together unless they’re training and they’re closely guarded at all times. The training is rigorous and relentless and despite his obvious skill, Jared soon realizes that Jensen is not a battle-seasoned warrior.

Jared has his own daily training, of course; the training never stops, but as a veteran gladiator, he has free time too. He spends as much time as he can, watching the young man from afar.

The Lanista has decided to have Jensen trained as a _Dimachaerus_ , which means he is lightly armored and fights with two curved scimitars, one in each hand. Jared himself is a _Thraex_. He also fights with a curved scimitar, but only one, and in his other hand he holds a shield. He also has more armor than a _Dimachaerus_ , including a heavy metal helmet.

As Jared stands, watching Jensen train, Benito sidles up beside him. Jared has never liked the Iberian; there’s something black and oily about his soul.

“He has such delicate features for a gladiator, no?” Benito says.

Jared folds his arms and ignores him.

“You think he’d like to be my _Puer delicates?”_ Benito asks.

“No,” Jared growls.

Benito sniggers.

“You think he’d like to be yours?”

Jared watches Jensen twirl both scimitars in a frighteningly competent manoeuvre that disarms his opponent and leaves him with his head between two swords.

“I think he’d kill anyone who tried to touch him without his permission,” he tells Benito.

“He won’t be armed outside of practice or the Arena,” Benito sneers, before stalking away.

Jared frowns at his retreating back and then turns back to the training area, his eyes seeking out Jensen once more. Jensen glances up and meets Jared’s eyes. He lifts his chin and stares challengingly at Jared. Jared smiles and waves and Jensen looks distinctly unimpressed. The new recruit turns away and Jared heads down to the baths with a sigh.

Erik’s men are kept firmly in check by Erik and, at the moment, the _novicus’s_ aren’t allowed to fraternize with the other gladiators, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been comments. Lots of them. About how pretty Jensen is; _Puer delicates_ seems to be the phrase most commonly used, usually followed by a crude comment about how tight his virgin ass is going to feel around the cock of whichever man is making the comment at the time. Jensen has heard many long, lewd descriptions of all the ways that various men will soon be able to enjoy violating his body and it’s really starting to get to him. He’s actually begun to look forward to the time when he and the other _novicus’s_ are finally allowed out of segregation, because he fully intends to put a stop to all of the comments by slicing off the balls of the first man who tries anything with him.

People say that it takes balls to be a gladiator, but it doesn’t _actually_ require balls. There are, after all, several female gladiators, who are frighteningly competent. No-one would dare cross Alaina—or Abaddon as she’s called in the Arena—Jensen knows that just from the conversations he’s overheard.  He also knows that fighting amongst themselves outside of the arena is strictly forbidden, but if it takes a gelding to get his would-be rapists off his back, then Jensen will happily accept the whipping that is sure to follow.

And then there’s Colossus. Or Jared as he’d introduced himself to Jensen. Jensen is still utterly mortified that he’d cried all over the man’s broad chest; not that Jared had seemed to care. In truth, Jensen’s not sure what to make of the man. His reputation is frightening, but the man Jensen met seemed like someone he could be friends with. Of course, Jensen had also heard Benito—Arena name The Leviathan—telling Brunus—Arena name The Barbarian—that he expected Colossus to call dibs on ‘the pretty boy’. So Jensen figures he’s going to have to watch out for Jared too.

“Jensen?” Erik lays a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m good,” Jensen picks up his bread and mops up the dregs of his barley and bean stew.

“Don’t worry for assholes,” Erik murmurs. “We watch your back.”

The Cheruscian’s Roman has improved dramatically. So has Jensen’s, for that matter. He’s more or less fluent now

“And I am grateful for your help,” he tells Erik. “But if I want them all to back off, I’m going to have to deal with this myself.”

Erik nods. “Yes,” he says. “But still we watch.”

“No talking!” a guard shouts.

The guards are usually pretty decent and don’t generally enforce the rule that the _novicus’s_ can’t talk over meals unless they get too rowdy.

Over on one of the veterans’ tables, The Barbarian stands up. He stares directly at Jensen and then grabs at his crotch and thrusts his pelvis in Jensen’s direction.

“Soon, sweetheart,” he coos.

“Sit down, Brunus,” Jared says. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Several of the other gladiators are looking at The Barbarian with disgust and Jensen takes note of which of them are glaring, just in case he needs allies in the future.

Jared is debating whether to join in the rowdy game of dice that Ty has started, enjoy a quiet game of _Latrunculi_ with Malik, or slip away to the baths for a nice soak and a massage, when one of the guards shouts his name.

“Visitor to see you,” the guard says.

It’s unusual for a gladiator to get a visitor outside of The Games and Jared hopes that it’s Genevieve, because Genevieve is not only a known factor, she’s also someone who Jared would like to consider a friend. Of course she’s a freewoman and the daughter of a senator, so considering her a friend probably wouldn’t be wise, but she does seem to like and respect him as much as he likes and respects her. 

A less welcome option would be Senator Jamelus Patricio Stuatius, a man with violent sexual tastes who is rumored to go through his young male slaves at an alarming rate and who, on occasion, likes to prove his virility by tying up the infamous Colossus and, well, Jared doesn’t really like to think too much about his sessions with the Senator.

Luckily, it is Genevieve.

Jared still remembers the first time—two years ago now—that he saw her.

He met her father first and was told, rather brusquely, that since Genevieve’s husband had died, her father had, on several occasions, discovered her freakishly rubbing against another woman.

Jared was to cure her of this. He was a symbol of male virility and was to remind her of what a true woman really wanted. But he was not to spill his seed inside of her.

For the most part, after nearly three years as a slave, Jared had accepted that his body was no longer truly his own. Sometimes it was violated in the arena by the tip of a sword. Other times the violation occurred in private and was more intimate. And he had, of course, violated others with his sword, though not ever with his _sword_.  Jared liked his bed partners to be loving and enthusiastic participants. He was no more comfortable with what he’d been asked to do to Genevieve than he would’ve been if her father had asked him to stab her.

Jared’s thoughts on the subject must’ve shown on his face because her father sighed and ran a hand across his eyes.

“I want her to remember the true pleasure that only a man can bring her,” he said. “You are young, virile, handsome; an excellent specimen of manhood. If you can’t convince her,” he broke off with a sigh. “I don’t want her hurt, Colossus, merely reminded that it is a _man’s_ touch that a woman truly craves.”

Genevieve had been standing when Jared entered the large cell with the bed; the room where the gladiators’ bodies were made available to paying customers for sex acts, as negotiated with the Lanista.

Her back was straight, her head held high. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a fancy style suited to a patrician woman from a powerful family. Her white silk _stola_ was trimmed with purple and when she turned to look at Jared her expression was as set as that on a marble statue.

“So,” she said. “You are the man who is to ‘cure’ me?”

Her tone was deeply scathing.

Jared offered her a smile. “So your father thinks. You may have to cure me first, though.”

Genevieve frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

Jared walked slowly to the bed. Genevieve didn’t step back, but her eyes did widen at his approach. Jared sat down and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Well,” he said, his eyes trained on the patterned mosaic on the floor. “It’s just that I…prefer the touch of other men in my, ah, intimate moments.”

Genevieve made no response. When Jared finally looked up at her, her lips were twitching and when he met her eyes she threw her head back and gave a full-bellied laugh.

“Oh this is too good,” she spluttered at last. “My father hired a _catamitus_ to cure a _fricatrix_!”

 Jared offered her a tentative smile. “So. What now?”

Genevieve sighed and sat beside him. “You’re going to have to fuck me, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t put it past my father to be watching through one of the spy holes in the ceiling. Don’t look up.”

Jared kept his eyes on Genevieve. “There are spy holes?”

“Oh yes. Whoever is using one of these rooms can also purchase onlooker tickets for their friends.”

“Great,” Jared muttered and Genevieve looked at him with real compassion.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Jared shook his head. “You don’t need to be sorry.”

Genevieve sighed. “I know. But I am anyway. Colossus… I know the type of men who come here to prove their virility. I have heard the bragging. I know,” she broke off and looked away. “I know what Jamelus claims to have done… that alone must have been bad enough. Knowing that there might have been others watching too,” she shook her head and then placed one small, slender hand over Jared’s much larger one.

Jared swallowed. “What if we told your father I couldn’t perform?” he suggested.

“We could,” Genevieve said. “But he’d have you whipped for it and then he’d bring in someone else to cure me. Someone who may not be as kind and caring as you obviously are. I would prefer it be you, but I will understand if you make a different choice.”

“No,” Jared said. “We’ll…go ahead as planned. Just…give me a moment.”

He startled when Genevieve put her hand on his cheek. “If it’s any consolation, Colossus, we are both victims here.”

“Jared,” he replied. “If we’re going to…be intimate…you should know that I am Jared.”

He hadn’t expected to see her again, but Genevieve kept coming back. Not for sex. That first time was the only time they were intimate, but because her father had banned all her female friends and wouldn’t let her socialize with Roman men because he hoped to marry her off to one of them and it wouldn’t be proper for her to spend time with them unchaperoned.

“But everyone’s just fine with me fucking a slave. Not that we’re going to fuck, but my father thinks you cured me and that I’m back for more magic healing cock,” Genevieve rolled her eyes. “Roman society is ridiculous. I hope you don’t mind me visiting? My father’s paying for your time and you don’t have to do anything except be company for me so I don’t go crazy with boredom.”

Jared looked around. “So no one is watching through a spy hole?”

Genevieve shook her head. “Not now that I’ve demonstrated such enthusiasm for your virile sword.”

Over time Jared had come to enjoy the feisty, funny woman’s company very much. She was clever and kind and if he’d swung that way, Jared would’ve been smitten.

Tonight, when he walks into the cell with the large bed, Genevieve is practically bouncing.

“I’ve met someone!” she tells him, almost tripping over her words in her excitement.

“A woman?”

“Yes! _Of course_ a woman!”

Genevieve’s repeated visits to Jared had convinced her father that she was ‘cured’ and he’d started allowing her to socialize with women again.

“Her name is Elta,” Genevieve continues. “And she’s amazing!”

They lie together on the bed and eat the fruit that Genevieve had requested be supplied. They talk and they laugh and eventually Gen elbows Jared in the side and demands to know what’s got him so distracted.

“I met someone too,” he says.

Gen waggles her eyebrows. “Do tell.”

“He’s a new gladiator. Still a _novicus_ so I haven’t had much opportunity to talk to him yet, but he’s smart, and a great, skilled fighter, and he’s incredibly good-looking. I’m guessing the only reason he’s not some senator’s boy toy is that he’s so dangerous.”

“Ooh,” Gen says. “Intriguing. What’s his name?”

Jared blushes. “Jensen.”

“And his arena name?”

“ _Venator_.”

“I’ll make sure to cheer for him at the next Games.”

Jared thanks her. The more the crowd likes a gladiator the greater their chance of long term survival.

“I don’t even know if he likes men that way,” Jared admits. “And I’ll be leaving in less than four months anyway. So I’m not sure if I should even try. If we become friends, it’ll only hurt when I have to leave him.”

Genevieve watches him silently for a moment and then says, “We none of us know what tomorrow will bring. Any chance for friendship, love or happiness should be seized with both hands.”

Genevieve has always been wise and Jared takes her words to heart.

It’s been six weeks now since Jensen had the _Ludus’s_ brand applied to his flesh.

Jensen had thought the pain was bad on the first day, but by the third day the pain was agonizing. The brands had hurt for a good week and then they’d itched, something fierce. Now, they’re still pink and angry looking, but they no longer hurt and the salve really does help. Jensen puts it on several times a day, because that’s what Jared recommended.

Jared.

Jensen blushes. He’s caught himself thinking about the infamous Colossus more and more lately. About his kindness on that first day, the way he held Jensen close while the brands were applied. About the hard, comforting planes of his chest and the way his arms had made Jensen feel safe and not so alone. He thinks about how often he’s caught Jared staring at him and the fact that he’s only ever smiled and waved, never leered or made crude comments. He knows what’s being said; that several gladiators—including Jared—are planning to claim him as their own when the _novicus’s_ join the general population tomorrow, but his gut tells him that he can trust Jared.

Jensen’s gut had never really trusted Quintus and it was to his cost that he hadn’t listened to it. Jensen had listened to his gut when it came to Erik and the Cheruscians and that had worked out well. Perhaps listening to his gut is something he should do more often.

Further food for thought had been provided by one of the service slaves. He’d introduced himself as Misha and he’d told Jensen that Jensen was exactly Jared’s type.

“Of course,” Misha said, “Jared prefers to be on top; so if you’re also the type of man who prefers to sheath his sword in another man’s scabbard, I would be glad to be of service.”

“Oh,” Jensen said. “Thank you?”

He blushes now remembering the conversation with Misha, the way he’d been so matter-of-fact about sex with other men and the wealth of knowledge he possessed about the proclivities of just about everyone in the _Ludus_. Thanks to Misha’s gossip, Jensen now knows that Lanista Marcus regularly takes Alaina for his pleasure and that she hates him. He knows that Jared has never taken anyone against their will, but that Brunus and Benito have both forced themselves on new gladiators in the past and that none of those new gladiators survived their first Games. He also learns that after the Games, he, along with all the other gladiators, will be made available to any customer with a deep enough purse to buy their sexual services.

“I’ll kill anyone who tries to use me like that,” Jensen told Misha.

Misha just looked at him with sad, doe eyes. “Which is why they will tie you down first and only let the most violent, sadistic men use you. At least until you learn your place.”

Jensen finishes applying his salve and puts the pot away with a sigh before lying back on his mattress.  His life has truly become a living nightmare. He hasn’t even set foot in the Arena yet and all he seems to do is try to think of ways to avoid being violated or killed.

Jensen wonders idly how many gladiators deliberately fall on their sword, their first time out.


	3. Chapter 3

The jangling of keys wakes Jared, as it does every morning. His unlocked door is flung open and one of the guards bids him a good morning and then throws a straw mattress and a blanket into the cell.

“You’ll be getting a cellmate later,” he says. “And the Lanista’s giving you the pretty one, so no complaining that you’re losing your private cell.”

Jared can’t help the pleased smile that spreads across his face and the guard—Lucius—grins knowingly. “He’s as pretty as a girl, that one. I can almost see why a man might be drawn to his charms.”

Jared doesn’t bother to explain that he’s pleased because in _his_ cell, Jensen will be safe. He’d probably be safe anyway, but Jared would rather that Jensen doesn’t have to hurt people and earn himself a lashing in order to remain unmolested.

The _novicuses_ are now _tirones_ , fully trained, but awaiting their first fight in the arena. As such they’ve finally been released among the _veterani_ , the veteran gladiators, and when Jared walks into the Dining Hall and sees the crowd of _veterani_ around the table where the _tirones_ are seated, he is reminded of the way the lions circle the condemned in the Arena.

He clears his throat and stares pointedly at the _veterani_.

Most of the men (and Alaina and Alona) are smart enough to move off to their own tables when Jared makes eye contact with them, but Brunus and Benito remain in place, flanking Jensen, who looks tense and angry.

Usually, when Jared walks, his pace is hurried and he has a spring in his step. He’s _bouncy_ , always has been. Colossus though, has a slow, rolling walk. He _prowls_.

Jared channels Colossus as he moves toward the _tirones’_ table. He stops beside Brunus. “Go and sit down,” he tells him. “You too, Benito.”  

Brunus glares and then stomps off to his regular table. Benito sneers and then follows him.

Jared very deliberately doesn’t look at Jensen; instead turning to the man who’s been given the Arena name _Regulus_. “I apologize for my colleagues’ poor behavior. I am Colossus, _Primus Palus_ of _Ludus Armentarius_ , and I welcome you all to our ranks.”

“First Pole?” Jensen sounds perplexed.

“The term comes from the training poles,” Jared explains. “It means that I am the best. The First Sword.”

Regulus bows his head. “It is honor, Colossus.”

Jared grins. “You can call me Jared. We all have Arena names, but we keep our own too. It’s important that we remember who we are; who we will be again once we serve out our five years.”

Regulus inclines his head again. “I am Erik,” he says, and proceeds to introduce the rest of the men at his table. Jared thinks that the Lanista has named Erik well. He is certainly a good leader to these men.

Breakfast is being served, so Jared goes to his own table and sits down beside Malik.

Ty and Milo both look like they want to say something, but they wait until they’ve all eaten their porridge to complain that they’ve each been assigned a cellmate.

“It was bound to happen eventually,” Jared says with a shrug. “There were only two empty cells and we were the only four without a cellmate.”

Milo rolls his eyes. “I’m sure _you_ still have a cell all to yourself.”

Jared shakes his head. “Actually, I was told this morning that I’ve been assigned a cellmate.”

“Do you know who?” Ty asks.

Jared nods and glances at Jensen.

“No way!” Ty says loudly, attracting everyone’s attention. “Of course _you_ get the pretty one. Mine has a nose like squashed cabbage.”

Jared focuses on his breakfast and ignores everyone.

The Lanista comes out and does his usual _welcome to gen pop, you’re tirones now, do us proud and earn your freedom_ speech. And then he divvies up the _tirones_ , sending the four who will be taking up the empty cells off with guards to settle in and then calling out Ty, Milo and Jared in turn and assigning them each a cellmate.

There is a rumble of disgruntled chatter when Jensen is assigned to Jared. Brunus and Benito have daggers in their eyes.

“Follow me,” Jared tells his new cellmate.

He tries to pretend that Jensen doesn’t look worried.

“This is our room,” he says. “I’m sorry about all the space I’m taking up. I’ve had my own room for a long time and I’m sorta famous, well infamous, I guess, but the point is I get, uh, gifts. From admirers, and well, just, you know, you’re welcome to put your stuff in my chest, when you get stuff. And you can share my stools and my cushions, and I’ll, uh, just, um…”

Jensen is standing with his back to the wall staring at Jared with far too much wariness for Jared’s liking.

Jared takes a deep breath. “I’ll shut up now. I’m sorry. I ramble when I’m…anyway. Shutting up now.”

There’s a long moment of silence and then Jensen takes a deep breath. “So this is my mattress?”

“Yes.”

“And my blanket?”

“Yes.”

“And everything else is yours?”

“Yes.”

“But you’ll share?”

“Yes.”

Jensen’s expression hardens. “And what do you expect in return?”

Jared runs a hand over his face, because, honestly, he should have expected this.

“Nothing,” he says.

Jensen snorts.  “Listen,” he says, “I know that you’re _Primus Palus_ , that you have some power here, but let me make something perfectly clear to you: You touch me, I will try my hardest to kill you.”

The threat would probably be more effective if Jared couldn’t see Jensen trembling. Of course, that could be caused by anger rather than fear.

“I see you boys are getting settled,” Lanista Marcus interrupts from the doorway. “I do hope you like my little gift to you, Jared,” he adds with a leer at Jensen.

Jensen’s fists tighten.

“Thank you, Lanista,” Jared says politely. “I am indeed pleased that Jensen will be in my room, where he’ll be safe, and not in the room of someone with ill intentions toward him.”

Both the Lanista and Jensen raise disbelieving eyebrows and Jared really is kind of _done_ with everyone thinking he’s an asshole rapist, just because he’s big and built and tries to stab people for a living.

“Actually,” Lanista Marcus says, “I just stopped by to tell you that I’ve cleared your training schedules for this morning and I want to see you both in the minor training quadrangle at the eighth hour.”

“Yessir,” Jared inclines his head politely.

As soon as the Lanista is gone Jared goes over to his chest and gets out his lime-tree chewing stick.  He sits on his bed, pointedly ignores Jensen, and gets on with cleaning his teeth.

Jensen stands stock still for a moment and then withdraws a small pot and his own chewing stick from within the folds of his short white tunic.

“This is all I currently own,” Jensen says.

Jared huffs. “You don’t _own_ it, you _have_ it. Marcus _owns_ it, just like he owns you.”

Jensen scowls. “Right,” he says. “This is all I currently _have_. If the offer to keep it in your storage chest is still open, then I would like to do so.”

As apologies go, it really isn’t one, but Jared decides to accept the olive branch anyway.

“Sure,” he says.

Jensen puts the pot away and then sits down on his mattress and cleans his teeth with his chewing stick.

“So. Where are you from?” Jared asks.

Jensen looks up warily.

“I don’t _care_ ,” Jared says with an eyeroll. “I’m not going to attack you if my people don’t like your people. I just…it’s good to remember who we really are.”

Jensen stares at him for a moment, his brow faintly furrowed and then he draws a deep breath.

“I am Jensen Ackelsen of Cimbria, a second son. I came to Rome to see if I could join the _Auxilia_. As you can see, that didn’t work out too well.”

“Why not? What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Jensen says tightly. “The trader I travelled with proved to be dishonorable. He sold me to a slave trader.”

Jared frowns. “Because you owed him a debt you couldn’t repay?”

Jensen shakes his head. “I was a freeman, a travel companion, nothing more. He had no right to sell me.”

“But…that is not legal,” Jared says.

Jensen snorts. “No one seems to care.”

“We should tell the Lanista. Marcus Armentarius is by no means a good man, but he is surprisingly serious about following the rule of law.”

Jensen purses his lips, sceptical. “He paid good money for me. Why would he just let me go?”

“Because it would be the right thing to do.”

Jensen outright laughs at that. “If he thinks he’s going to lose me anyway, what’s to stop him from making sure I get killed in the arena? I know the trained gladiators don’t die often, but that just makes it more spectacular when they do. No, better I say nothing and just try to make it through my five year term.”

Jared tries really hard to convince Jensen to speak up, but he steadfastly refuses, so Jared lets it go.

They make their way to the Armory and get fitted with their training armor and given their training weapons, and then they head over to the training quadrangle where the Lanista instructed them to meet him.

When the Lanista arrives he tells Jared and Jensen that when they sparred together on Jensen’s first day at the _Ludus_ , he had noticed how well they read each other, how good they looked together, and how much it impressed him that they could both make the fight look good, like a violent, choreographed dance. He wants to make use of that. He wants Jared and Jensen to be the _Ludus’s_ new _praegenarii_ ; the new opening act.

Jared’s not stupid. He understands the Lanista’s thinking here. With Jared’s five years soon to be up, he’s looking at ways of keeping Colossus in his employ. The _praegenarii_ are entertainers more than fighters. Their job is to keep the crowd amused. They’re in no danger during their performance and while both Jared and Jensen will have to fight for real, later in the Show, performing as _praegenarii_ will save them both a couple of potentially fatal fights per day. As strategies for keeping Jared around go, it’s a good one. The idea of being able to keep Jensen just that little bit safer is appealing to him.

\--

After the first few days of training Jared’s pretty sure that Marcus will want to keep Jensen as a _praegenarii_ whether Jared stays with the Ludus past his five year term or not.

Jensen is an attractive man and he clearly knows it—it would be impossible for him not to, given that all of the _Ludus’s_ female gladiators and a large portion of its male gladiators are openly lusting after him—but the thing that impresses Jared is that Jensen’s not afraid to use that in his performances; not afraid to objectify himself. Or maybe he just doesn’t realize that he oozes sexuality every time he moves.  Jensen is comfortable in his body and confident in what it can do. Jared spends most of their training sessions half hard, just watching Jensen throws himself into each performance.

Jensen is also genuinely funny. He has great comedic timing and the hours they spend together each day choreographing mock fights quickly become Jared’s favorite part of the day. They laugh a lot. They even make the Lanista laugh. And Jared surprises himself by revealing his own funny side.

He’s worked really hard over the last five years to create _Colossus_ , a strong, powerful, larger than life warrior; a character who’s fierce,  dominant and heroic. The real life Jared is nothing like him. For a start, he’s always rushing around with ten different things on his mind, which means he has a tendency to fall over and drop things and generally act like a newborn colt who isn’t yet used to his long wobbly legs. In the acts that he and Jensen are putting together, Jared plays up that aspect of himself, knowing that the contrast with Colossus only adds to the humor. 

Of course, they still have to train for gladiatorial combat, and they spend their afternoons doing just that. Jared is a _Thraex_ and Jensen is a _Dimachaerus_ , which means they train together for real combat too, as their gladiator types are compatible.

Despite the fact that he’s doing less combat training than everyone else, Jared still manages to retain his position as _Primus Palus_ , when they rank everyone at the end of the week. Jensen, to the surprise of everyone bar Jared, is ranked _Secundus Palus_ ; Second Pole.  From then on Jensen sits at Jared’s table with the other high ranking gladiators, even though he’s still only a _tirone_. 

Jared can’t pretend he’s not happy that he and Jensen are spending so much time together. They work closely with one another all day, every day and they live together too. If Jensen was interested in sharing Jared’s bed he would consider his life pretty much perfect, but so far, Jensen does not seem inclined to share the pleasures of the flesh with Jared. Jared is disappointed, but he respects his friend’s decision. And they are friends; Jared is sure of that. They get along; they enjoy each other’s company. Jensen only becomes awkward and cagey when their cell door locks shut each night, and Jared isn’t going to lie; it hurts his feelings that Jensen still doesn’t really trust him.

The cell door clangs shut and the lock turns and Jensen swallows back his panic and climbs onto his mattress, pulling the blanket up to his chin.

Beside him, on the other side of the room, Jared sighs and climbs into his own bed.

Jared thinks that Jensen doesn’t trust him, but that’s not true. He stopped believing that Jared might molest him in his sleep days ago. But he hates being locked in his cell at the end of each day. It makes his chest ache; makes him feel as if he can’t breathe properly. And it reminds him of his status as a slave in a way that nothing else does.

The thing is, Jensen enjoys his training. He enjoys Jared’s company and he even likes Malik, Ty and Milo. Erik and the Cheruscians have remained friendly too, even though he no longer has much to do with them. Jensen loves the baths—not so much the leers he gets from Brunus and Benito, but no one dares come near him in such a public environment, and soaking his whole body in warm scented water is a luxury he doesn’t want to give up. Jensen really enjoys the massages too; Misha sure has talented fingers. And the food—well, it’s passable.

The lack of freedom is the only thing that is a problem and it’s a big one. Whenever he reminds himself that Marcus Armentarius owns him, whenever he remembers that his owner can do what he will with Jensen, even up to and included demanding his death, Jensen gets so angry that he nearly chokes on his rage. The nightly closing and locking of the cell door is a bitter reminder of his status and, lying quietly in the dark, there is not much to do except stew in his own resentment.

And think.

Jensen will be taking part in his first tournament in just two weeks. He’s confident that he’ll survive it. The Lanista has invested a lot of time and money in him and so long as he performs as well in the Arena as he’s been performing in training, he should suffer nothing worse than minor injuries. So Jensen is not worried about the upcoming Games. No, Jensen is worried about what might (will probably) happen after the Games; after he comes to the attention of the Roman people, or more particularly the Roman elite. After all, they are the ones most likely to feel entitled to use him for their private entertainment. In the eyes of the patricians, there is no difference between a gladiator, an actor and a whore—anyone who gives their body for entertainment is fair game. As both a gladiator and a slave, Jensen is in no doubt that once the Games begin, his body will be used for more than combat and what he wants, is to talk to Jared about it, but it’s an awkward conversation to have and Jensen can’t bring himself to start it. Instead, he pulls away from Jared, tense and prickly, and makes Jared think that Jensen doesn’t trust him.   

“Jensen?” Jared’s voice echoes softly in the dark, startling Jensen.

“Yes?”

“What can I do to make you trust me?”

Jensen rolls onto his side and stares at Jared through the dim light.  “I do trust you, Jared. It’s just…” Jensen stutters to a stop.

“I would never touch anyone without their permission,” Jared says.

“I know,” Jensen says. “It’s just…we’re so busy all day, it’s not until I lie down at night that I start to _think_ about everything.”

“You’re worried about the Games,” Jared says. “Don’t be. You’re good. You’re going to be a star.”

Jensen huffs. “That’s actually what’s worrying me,” he pauses, figures he may as well just get it over with. “Misha told me that it is not uncommon for Romans with deep purses to pay to spend…intimate time…with a gladiator at the end of the Games.”

Jared’s intake of breath is sharp.

“Is it true?” Jensen asks.

“Yes,” Jared says.

Jensen bites at his lip. He hadn’t dared hope that Misha had been lying, trying to frighten him, but to have it so starkly confirmed leaves him feeling shaky.

“And have you…?” Jensen can’t bring himself to complete the question, but he knows that Jared gets it.

“Yes,” the veteran gladiator says.

Jensen nods and chews on his lip some more. “And is it…bad?”

Jared rolls onto his back and sighs. “Not always. But it can be. It can be very bad.”

Jared continues to talk, in a low, detached voice, telling Jensen tales of men and women—but mostly of men—and the things they have had Jared do to them; the things they have done to Jared.  Not all of the tales are awful. Jared has clearly enjoyed some of the encounters that he’s had, but his enjoyment is not a thing of consequence, and there have been times when Jared has not enjoyed what he was forced to suffer through at all.

“How do you deal with something like that?” Jensen blurts when Jared finishes speaking.

Jared turns to look at him. “I was talking to Malik one day about his Gods and I asked him if his people believe that we have souls. He said to me, Jared you don’t _have_ a soul, you _are_ a soul. You _have_ a body.

I don’t like a lot of the things that happen to my body, but my body is not _me_. My soul is _me_ and that is something they can’t touch.”

Jensen thinks that’s a beautiful sentiment, but it probably doesn’t help a person’s body to hurt any less when it’s violated.

After a long moment of silence, he confesses. “I’ve been with women, but it never occurred to me to share those same pleasures with another man.”

“Most men prefer women,” Jared says.

“Misha says that you prefer men.”

There’s another long silence and then Jared says, “I do.”

Jensen bites at his lip. “Have you had enough choice in the matter to really be sure?”

“Oh, yes,” Jared replies. “Believe me, I’m quite sure. I definitely prefer chiselled abs to squishy breasts.”

Jensen can’t help sniggering.

“I’m guessing you prefer squishy breasts?” Jared says.

Jensen’s breath catches in his throat. “It’s what I know,” he says finally. “It’s what is expected. You join with a woman, you have children.”

“But?” Jared says softly when Jensen falls into brooding silence.

Jensen rolls onto his back and looks up at the ceiling. “I have seen you in the baths,” he says, his cheeks reddening. “A woman would struggle to take _that_ and a woman’s opening is much bigger and stretchier than a man’s.”

Jared giggles and the sound is so unexpected that Jensen can’t help turning to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” Jared splutters. “I’m so glad you can’t see how much I’m blushing right now. But, uh, you’d be surprised what’s possible with the right preparation.”

Jensen can’t quite believe he made the mighty Colossus blush. But then, Jared is not Colossus. Not really. Jared is sweet and kind and apparently no less human than Jensen.

“Does it hurt though?” Jensen asks.

Jared sighs. “With the right preparation…not really. Maybe a little. But without it? Yes. It can hurt a lot. But there’s more to sex between men, than fucking, you know. There’s also kissing and cuddling and just touching each other; my lips on his, our tongues twining together, my fingers stroking his shaft, rubbing against his most sensitive areas.”

Jensen doesn’t mean to make that embarrassing little whine, it just sort of escapes from him in a rush of needy air.

“Maybe he’ll touch me,” Jared continues. “Maybe he’ll reach down and take my cock in his fist, run his hand up and down my length, gathering the pre-come that’s leaking from the tip and using it to smooth the way.”

Jensen’s cock begins to swell and he can’t help reaching down and pressing the heel of his hand against it.    

“Maybe I’ll take him in my mouth,” Jared’s voice is low and husky now and Jensen isn’t sure, but he thinks maybe he’s touching himself too. “I’ll run my tongue over the head of his dick, and then swallow him down deep, my hot wet mouth applying just the right amount of pressure to make him come down my throat.”

Jensen’s dick is in his hand now and he’s imagining that he’s the one who Jared is touching; that he’s the one who’s thrusting into Jared’s mouth. Jared’s words have him aching with want and when he comes, he’s not able to supress his groan. A moment later a similar groan leaves Jared’s lips and Jensen isn’t quite sure how to feel about the fact that he and Jared essentially just jerked off together, so he wipes himself with the folds of his _subligar_ and then arranges it so that the wet part isn’t touching him.

“Are you all right, Jensen?” Jared says.

 Jensen doesn’t know what to say so he just ignores his cellmate. He rolls over and feigns sleep, until his slow deep breaths finally trigger the real thing.

\--

Not much changes. Jared and Jensen still spend all day every day working together and then go home together at the end of each day. They enjoy each other’s company, they have fun and they don’t mention that night they jerked off together.

Jensen can’t stop thinking about it though. In fact, it’s got him a little distracted. Not in the practice arena, of course, he’s utterly focused there. But he finds himself drifting back to the memory at meal times. And when he’s on the massage table. And when he’s in the baths. Especially when he’s in the baths. Seeing Jared in all his naked glory is very distracting.

Jensen has finished his daily massage and is on his way to the common area to join Malik and Jared in a game of _Latrunculi_. He’s thinking hard about whether he should try talking to Jared about that night, when he is grabbed from behind and a hand comes up to cover his mouth.

Jensen kicks and struggles as Brunus and Benito wrestle him into the now-empty massage area.  Brunus is holding him from behind with one hand around his chest and the other around his head. Benito is trying to get hold of his legs, to lift them off the ground. Eventually they spin him around and force him face down over one of the massage tables. Brunus’s hand slips from his mouth in the manouever and Jensen shouts loudly for help before Brunus shoves a rag in his mouth—it tastes of lavender and oil—and ties another one around his head to hold it in place. Brunus is gripping Jensen’s upper arms tightly, leaving finger marks and Benito is trying to part his legs. Jensen is bucking and rolling and yelling behind his gag.

“Son of a whore,” Brunus spits, “he’s like a wildcat. Can’t wait to get my dick in him.”

He lets go of one of Jensen’s arms and backhands him across the face. Jensen’s ears ring and he’s momentarily stunned. He stops fighting just long enough for Benito to get Jensen’s tunic up around his waist and to pull down his _subligar_ , baring him to the room.   

Jensen twists and writhes and kicks and Benito slaps his ass hard.

“Hold still,” he says. “The more you fight, the more it will hurt.”

He picks up a pot of massage oil and pours some onto his hand.

The next moment Benito is torn away from Jensen and Brunus lets go of him and stands back with his hands help up in surrender.

Jensen scrambles off the massage table, righting his clothes and ripping off the gag, and then Jared is beside him, babbling at him, hugging him, and Jensen sees two of the guards taking Benito and Brunus away. Misha is hovering, his eyes worried.

“Misha saw them,” Jared is saying. “He was cleaning up out back and he heard the commotion, saw what was happening. He came and got me and I got the guards.”

Jensen pushes at Jared’s chest and Jared gets the message. He lets go of Jensen and steps back, giving him his space.

“Are you all right?” Jared asks.

Jensen nods. He reaches for Misha and grasps his shoulder. “Thank you,” he says.

“You’re welcome,” Misha says and fades into the background.

Jared swallows, his throat rippling. ‘They didn’t…?”

Jensen shakes his head. “You got here in time.”

Jensen feels sick. Mostly because there’s a part of him that’s wishing he’d just let it happen. Because it’s going to. It’s inevitable. And in some ways he just wants to get it over with so that the worst has happened and it’s not an _unknown_ any more. On the other hand, he _really_ doesn’t want it to happen. The thought that he might do certain things with Jared for fun, is a good one. They thought that he might be forced to do certain things with other people is a bad one. So…it’s not the things, per se, that he has a problem with. It’s the lack of _choice_.  His status means that he no longer has any right to make decisions about his own body. Jensen frowns. That’s not exactly true. He could decide to have sex with Jared and that would be his own choice, freely made. He just won’t always have a choice.

“Jensen? Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

Jared’s eyes are big and liquid and he looks like he needs to hug Jensen again. Jensen moves into his space and Jared’s arms come up and wrap around him.

“I’m not hurt,” he says. “Just thinking.”

“They’ll be punished,” Jared says. “Marcus won’t let them get away with this.”

Jensen snorts. “It would be a different story if they were patricians and they’d paid Marcus for me.”

Jared’s eyes become even more sorrowful. “I know,” he says and hugs Jensen even more tightly.

“C’mon,” Jensen says. “Let’s go home.”

\--

After supper that night they’re all taken into the main training arena, where there are two A-Frames set up. Brunus and Benito are led out naked and they are each tied face-first to one of the A-Frames.

The Lanista gives them all a short lecture about in-fighting among the _familia_ of the _Ludus_ being unacceptable and then the punishment begins.

As floggings go, it isn’t a bad one. By the time it’s done their buttocks, thighs, and shoulders are red and welted and blood is beading in some areas, but they’ll be healed in a week. Which is just as well, because the Games start in eight days. Until then, Brunus and Benito will be confined to their cell, which is a punishment in itself because they’ll miss a week of training right before the Games, which is both bad for conditioning and also means they’ll slip in the _Ludus’s_ rankings. The lower a gladiator is ranked; the less valuable they are; the less likely they are to survive the fights that are chosen for them.

So Jensen is satisfied with the punishment handed out to his would-be rapists. He heads back to his cell determined to put the whole thing behind him.

Jensen trains hard over the next few days and cements his position as _Secundus Palus._ Life is more pleasant when he doesn’t have to look over his shoulder for Brunus or Benito too. And their flogging seems to have deterred anyone else who may have been harboring thoughts of touching Jensen without his permission.

It’s a good week and then, suddenly, tomorrow is the final day before the Games. Tomorrow night there will be a big public banquet, the _coena libera_ , which Jared has been talking about for days, because there will be both meat and wine provided.

“I miss meat so much,” he grumbles to Jensen as they get into bed. “Back home we hunted regularly and had meat at least once a week. Sometimes Mama ground the meat and wrapped it in _kiseli_ _kupus,”_ Jared sighs. “Ah, _sarma_ , how I miss you.”

“Who is Sarma?” Jensen asks.

Jared chuckles. “Not who, _what_. It is a dish from my homeland made with ground meat and sour cabbage leaves.”

Jensen wrinkles his nose.

“No, it’s good,” Jared insists. “Everyone loves _sarma_.”

“Where are you from?” Jensen asks. Because though Jared has asked him, he has never asked Jared.

“I am of the Breuci tribe. Illyrian. My people lived in the Sava Valley. Some of them may still live there.”

“Rome conquered you in war?”

Jared nods. “Several times. We are a proud people. We tend to revolt. This last time, though, Rome’s victory was…decisive.”

“And you were taken as a prisoner of war?”

Jared nods again. “Many of the men fighting with me were executed. Some of us younger men were spared death and enslaved instead. I became one of General Flavius’s slaves and I was responsible for caring for his dogs while we were on the road. I think it was the dogs that saved me. They came over to sniff at us when we were all chained together and I played with them a little. The General always said his dogs were a good judge of character and they seemed to like me. The General liked me too, but he made it very clear from the beginning that he restricted his extra-marital dalliances with slaves to his time away on military campaigns. When we got back to Rome he sold me, and I was bought by the _Ludus_.”

“That’s awful!”

Jared turns and stares at him. “I got lucky,” he says. “I could’ve spent the last five years as a rotting corpse; instead I’m the most popular gladiator in all of Rome. And yes, I’m a slave, but I’m only a few weeks away from freedom. My life is better than I ever expected it to be and it’s only going to get better when I finally gain my freedom.”

Jensen nods and bites at his lip and tries to pretend that it doesn’t tear him up inside that Jared is so close to his freedom, while he still has his full term to go. Jared has come to mean a lot to him and soon he will be leaving. And the day after tomorrow is the first day of the Games. No matter how unlikely, one or both of them could die during the six day tournament and thinking about how little time he has left with Jared, even if everything goes well, Jensen comes to a decision. 

“Jared?”

“Yes?”

“Remember a week or so back, when you were telling me what you like to do, you know with the touching and the kissing and so on?”

“Yes?”

Jensen folds an arm over his forehead. “I liked it.”

“You did?”

“I did. I liked listening to you talk. And…and I’d like to do some of those things.”

“You would?”

“Yes. With you.”

The room settles into deep silence.

“I mean,” Jensen says. “If you want to.”

“I do,” Jared says, his tone rushed. “I want to very much. So long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Jensen says.

There’s another long silence.

“Do you mean now?” Jared asks. “Or sometime in the future?”

“We can’t be sure that we have a future,” Jensen says.

Jared stares at him from across the room. “We do, Jen, I’m sure of it. But if we both want this,” he opens up his blanket. “My bed is bigger.”

It is bigger. Much bigger. Jared has even purchased a custom-made bedframe for himself, so that his custom-made mattress is up off the floor.

Jensen just has the standard issue mattress on the floor. His feet stick over the end if he lies straight. He only hesitates a moment before getting up and slipping into the welcoming warmth of Jared’s much-nicer bed. It’s squashy, with two big men in it, but that just means they have to snuggle closely together, which makes it so much easier for Jensen to lean in and press his lips to Jared’s.

Jared responds immediately, one big hand coming up to clasp the back of Jensen’s head, holding him in place as he licks his way into Jensen’s mouth. Jensen isn’t sure what to do with his hands, so he puts one on Jared’s chest, over his heart, and the other around his waist. Jared moans and then his other hand is on Jensen’s ass, pulling him in close so that their groins slot together. Jared thrusts his hips and pleasure zings through Jensen’s veins as his dick goes from half-mast to fully erect at the contact. He’s pretty sure the breathless, needy little noises are coming from him, but it’s a bit hard to tell with the way they’re both groaning and grinding, almost trying to climb into each other’s skin as they chase completion.

Jensen pulls away. “Stop,” he gasps.    

Jared stops, his eyes widening. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Did I…did you not…?”

“No, no,” Jensen rushes to reassure him. “This is awesome. I just…can we…do you have oil?”

Jared’s eyes darken. “You want?” he squeezes Jensen’s ass.

Jensen nods. “I want the first time I do this to be my choice.”

Jared’s lips turn down a little and Jensen clarifies. “Jared, I want this. If we had the luxury of time, maybe I’d want to wait a little longer, work our way up to this. But we both know that after the Games there will be men eager to pay for the chance to fuck _Venator_.  I want my first time to be my choice, and _you_ are my choice.”

Jared kisses him again and then reaches over and opens his storage chest. He pulls out a little pot of ointment and then wriggles out of his underwear and urges Jensen to do the same. When they’re both naked, Jared takes Jensen in his hand and strokes him until Jensen is writhing and gasping, his hips moving of their own accord. Jensen tenses when an ointment-slick finger presses against his asshole, but all Jared does is rub lightly, spreading the oily ointment around, and Jensen relaxes. And then the tip of Jared’s finger goes in just a little, but it feels good; in fact Jensen wants more, so he pushes back and Jared gets the message and, oh gods, it feels amazing. It’s like there’s something inside his ass that is directly connected to his dick, because Jensen’s dick has never been harder. He grips Jared’s shoulder tightly, rocking forward into the fist around his dick and then back onto the finger in his ass.

And then the finger is gone and Jensen whines and begs Jared not to stop.

“Not stopping,” Jared says, and pushes two slicked fingers into Jensen’s ass.

Jensen can feel the stretch now, but it doesn’t hurt. It still feels incredibly good and pretty soon he’s rocking back eagerly, trying to take those amazing fingers as deeply as he can. Next he gets three fingers and Jared lets go of Jensen’s dick and just focuses on making sure that Jensen is slick and open and ready.

And he is ready. So ready.

Jared chuckles and Jensen flushes when he realizes that he’s begging out loud, pleading with Jared to fuck him, now.

Jared complies. He rolls Jensen onto his stomach and puts some rags down beneath him. Jensen cants his hips, offering up his ass.

Nothing happens.

Jensen peers over his shoulder and sees Jared kneeling between his spread legs, holding his blood-red, leaking dick and staring down at Jensen with the kind of worship usually reserved for the gods.

“C’mon, Jared,” he says. “Need you.”

Jared leans forward. He places the tip of his dick right there and then he pushes in, slowly, relentlessly, filling Jensen oh so good. There are a few uncomfortably moments, but Jensen adjusts quickly and then Jared is fucking him deep and hard and Jensen is gasping and moaning. Jared’s dick is pressing against some kind of nub inside of Jensen’s ass that triggers pleasure like nothing Jensen has ever felt and Jensen’s own dick is rubbing against the rags. He feels his balls tighten and then tighten some more and then he’s coming, his dick spurting its release and his ass clenching around Jared’s dick. The clenching sets off Jared’s orgasm and Jared groans and pumps hard a couple of times before collapsing on Jensen’s back. He stays there for a moment and then rolls them onto their sides, his dick still firmly planted in Jensen’s ass. Jensen wipes at his dick with the rags and they lie for a while getting their breath back. Jared’s dick softens and he pulls out, taking the rags from Jensen and cleaning both himself and Jensen’s ass.

Jared throws the rags on the floor and then leans down and kisses Jensen.

“Are you all right?” he asks when he finally pulls back.

“That was amazing,” Jensen says. “My ass feels weird though. Almost as if I’ve still got something in there.”

Jared lies down behind him and throws an arm over him. “It’s just because that part of you doesn’t usually stretch that far. You might be a bit sore tomorrow, but you shouldn’t be tender for too long.”

Jared yawns. “Do you want to sleep here or in your own bed?”

“I should probably move,” Jensen says, echoing Jared’s yawn. “But I can’t be bothered.”

“Stay,” Jared says. “Just for a while.”

Jensen snuggles against him and agrees, because it’s nice to be held like this and Jensen wants this feeling of contentment and safety to last as long as possible. 


	4. Chapter 4

Rattling. Banging. And then bellowing.

“The gods be damned! Why couldn’t you have waited one more night?”

Jensen opens his eyes just in time to see a pot of ointment sail over his head and clock the guard who just opened their cell smack in the face.

“Shut up, Chadius,” Jared says sleepily.

Jensen frowns. “Chadius? Really? That’s a name?”

“Fuck you too, Colossus,” says the guard. Who Jensen refuses to call Chadius, because what kind of a stupid name is that? “I just lost ten _asses_ because you two couldn’t keep it in your _subligars_ for one more day!”

“You were betting on when we would have sex?” Jared mostly sounds amused. With a side of irritated.

“Well it beats betting on which of you will die first,” the guard says. He picks up the pot of ointment and throws it onto the bed. “Think yourself lucky I’m not having you whipped for throwing that at me.”

Jensen turns to look at Jared, alarmed, but his companion merely rolls his eyes and tells the guard to fuck off again, which the man does with a cheerful grin, bellowing for Lucius as he goes, telling him that he won the jackpot.

“Better get up,” Jared says, nudging Jensen.

Jensen swallows. “I’m sorry. I meant to get back into my own bed before they unlocked the cell, but I didn’t wake up in time. We won’t get in trouble for this, will we?”

Jared shakes his head. “But everybody’s gonna know.”

He’s not wrong. As soon as they walk into the Dining Hall there’s a round of applause and quite a bit of cat-calling and wolf-whistling too. Lucius is going around with a broad smile, collecting his winnings, Ty offers to grade their performance and Malik tells them to keep it down next time. Jensen’s cheeks feel hot enough to cook on. They only get hotter when Erik pulls him to one side to make sure that nothing happened that Jensen didn’t want to happen. It reminds him wistfully of his dad, but also makes him feel like a blushing bride. Well, all right, he’s got the blushing happening, but he’s not some sweet little virgin girl.

“I wasn’t tied down,” he tells Erik. “If I hadn’t wanted it, I would’ve fought him off.”

“Good to know,” says Lanista Marcus from somewhere behind him.

Jensen turns to face him and the Lanista inclines his head, narrows his eyes and gives Jensen a good once over.

“Eh,” he says. “You’re still young and pretty. I can probably still pass you off as a virgin.”

The room goes deathly silent.

“Now that I have everyone’s attention,” Marcus Armentarius says, “Tonight is Banquet Night, so I invite you all to eat, drink and be merry. But make sure you’re also on your best behavior because there will be a lot of important people at the Banquet, including a lot of potential investors and we want to keep them happy, don’t we?”

There are some muttered _yessirs_ and the Lanista claps his hands together and says, “All right, enjoy your last day of training.”

Jensen’s breakfast tastes like sludge.

By the afternoon, though, he’s managed to recover his good mood. Training goes well and despite the slight hitch in his step, which isn’t noticeable unless you’re looking for it (which everybody is) Jensen manages to retain his position as _Secundus Palus_. Jared, of course, remains _Primus Palus_.  

The final rankings complete, they all enjoy several hours in the baths before changing into the costumes that they wear to fight in the arena, because everybody at the banquet wants to see _gladiators_ and nobody cares that leather armor is not comfortable to dine in.

The Banquet Hall is huge and ornately decorated. It’s filled with people, all dressed in their finest, and Jensen feels very out of place.

Romans seem to have a very strange attitude toward gladiators. On the one hand, the women are swooning and the young men are cheering, as if Jensen and his fellow gladiators are important, worthy people. On the other hand, there are also a lot of snide comments and lewd suggestions being called out and most people, even the ordinary folk, seem to feel entitled to reach out and grope them as they march past to the table of honor at the front of the room. As Jensen surveys the crowd, he realizes that he is not a real person to these people; he is the embodiment of their fantasies and they feel entitled to far more of him than he would ever willingly give. It’s all a little scary.

The food though, is everything that Jared promised it would be. Jensen has never before seen such a feast as the banquet laid out before them.

There are speeches and there is food, wine and music and it’s hard not to get swept up in the carnival atmosphere of it all. Jared sits beside him all night, pointing out important or interesting people.

A small dark-haired woman appears beside them and wraps her hands around Jared’s eyes.

“Guess who?” she giggles.

“Genevieve,” Jared says, pulling her hands from his eyes.

She bends over and kisses his cheek and Jensen stiffens.

Genevieve notices. She catches his eye and smiles. “And you must be Jensen,” she says softly. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Jensen looks at Jared and raises an eyebrow.

“It’s a long story,” Jared says. “I’ll tell you later. But Genevieve is a friend. She’s also the daughter of an important senator.”

Genevieve rolls her eyes. “More importantly,” she says, “I’m hoping that I can introduce you to my girl. She’s here with her family. I haven’t been able to see as much of her as I’d like lately, because my father’s been entertaining a lot of potential suitors. It’s been awful, Jared. Just like being put up on a slave dais.” Her eyes go wide. “Ooh! I’m so sorry. That was a thoughtless thing to say. Anyway, my father seems to be favoring Alastarius Porcius Heveldius,” she pulls a face.  “Have you heard of him?”

Jared says that he hasn’t and Jensen certainly hasn’t. He doesn’t know anyone in Rome, outside of the _Ludus_. 

“He’s only been a citizen for a couple of years. He’s originally from _Norwegia_ , used to be called Heyerdahl or something, but of course, he Romanized his name when he became a citizen. He’s a close confidant of the Emperor and according to rumor he’s an expert in torture and assassination. There are even whispers that he does a lot of the Emperor’s dirty work for him.”

Jensen raises his eyebrows. “And your father _favors_ him?”

Genevieve growls. “My father _favors_ Heveldius’s influence with the Emperor. And my father won’t have to share a bed with him,” she scrunches her nose. “I hope that whoever my father choses is content to have separate quarters, because I’ll do my duty and try to produce a son, but I don’t want someone who’s going to be all over me all the time,” she shudders and then frowns. “Rumor also suggests that Heveldius favors pretty slave boys, so perhaps he won’t want to bother with me at all.” Genevieve appears to perk up a little at the thought. “Anyway, I’m going to go and find Elta. If I can, I’ll bring her to meet you,” she sashays away and Jensen watches her leave until Jared clears his throat.

“I guess I better explain Genevieve,” he says, and proceeds to do so.

By the time he’s finished, Jensen is frowning. “I don’t understand. How can two women have sex?”

“With fingers and tongues and lips,” Jared says.

Jensen can feel his cheeks heating. “Oh.”

Another course is served. Several other people come to talk to Jared. Some are simply fans of the mighty Colossus. Others take a more intimate tone with him and Jensen doesn’t even have to ask to know that these are people who have paid for the services of Colossus at one time or another. Some of them ask to be introduced to Jensen—to _Venator_ —and Jensen tries not to recoil when they touch him; a hand on his shoulder, here, another on his thigh, there.

And then Genevieve comes back with a stunningly attractive woman in tow; big brown eyes, full bowed lips and a cute button nose. Her beauty stops Jensen’s breath in his throat.

“Jared, Jensen, this is….” she pauses and looks questioningly at the woman beside her.

“Danni,” the woman says. “My praenomen is Elta, but most people call me Danni. My full name is Elta Danneldius Harrissius. Gen prefers to use my praenomen because she thinks it’s more intimate.”

“It is,” Genevieve says. “It’s a name just for me to use.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jared says, his voice warm and genuine.

Jensen stammers out something vaguely appropriate. He mostly stays quiet in the ensuing conversation, because he’s feeling a little overwhelmed. Jensen’s father may be a clan chief, but his village is small and rural and nowhere near as sophisticated as Rome. Jensen’s father isn’t on the same level as the Emperor of Rome—a man who Genevieve is apparently distantly related to. Jensen swallows. He is so out of his depth here. Even learning that Danni is not a _patrician_ , but a wealthy merchant—she and her mother run a vineyard and sell wine to the Roman nobility—doesn’t make him relax, because he finds her beauty intimidating.

“Ooh,” Genevieve says. “Jamelus Patricio Stuatius just walked in.”

Jensen follows her gaze and sees a pale, hunchbacked man, hobbling with a cane.

Danni sniggers.

Jared frowns. “What’s wrong with him?”

Genevieve folds her hands in front of her like a demure little girl. “Well,” she says, “there may have been a little something extra added to an _amphora_ of wine he purchased recently. I guess he won’t be up to purchasing certain services this Games.”

Jared looks like he might cry. He looks from Genevieve to Danni and back again. “You did that? For me?”

Genevieve’s smile is a little frightening. “Nobody hurts my friends and gets away with it,” she says. “And I have all my grandmother’s recipes.”

Genevieve and Danni move off to talk to other people and yet more people come to talk to Jared. One man introduces himself as Marcus Pellegrino, Lanista of _Ludus_ Pellegrino. He tries to talk Jared into signing on with him as a gladiator once his term with _Ludus_ Armentarius is finished, but Jared declines and Pellegrino is obviously angry when he leaves.

Jared sighs and shakes his head. “He’s been trying to buy me off Armentarius for years; desperate to have _Colossus_ in his stable,” he rubs a hand over his chin. “He’ll probably insist on putting Cain up against me in the arena.”

“Who’s Cain?”

“He’s the _Primus Palus_ of _Ludus_ Pellegrino and he’s a real piece of work. His first time in the Arena, he killed his brother. And he’s the only gladiator who’s ever come close to killing me.”

Jensen’s eyes widen. “This is not good.”

Jared shrugs. “I’ve got a lot to live for, Jensen. Trust me when I say I’m not going down easily.”

\--

Jensen awakes with butterflies in his belly. He’s going to be sick, he’s sure of it.

A big hand reaches out and rests on his shoulder and Jensen rolls onto his back and looks up at Jared.

“You’re going to be fine,” Jared tells him.

“Yeah,” Jensen says.

Jared leans down and kisses him. His lips are soft and gentle and Jensen can’t help but remember the way they wrapped around his cock last night. He begins to get hard just thinking about the way Jared sucked him down, about the tight wet heat and the firm gentle pressure. When Jared had pressed a finger inside of him and then sucked him down to the root, Jensen had come so hard he’d nearly blacked out, and gods be damned, he’s as hard as stone again now.

Jared takes him in hand and he reaches over and finds Jared’s equally hard cock. They jerk each other off lazily while kissing and they’re cleaning up and dressing by the time their door is thrown open.

Last night, when they’d been locked in their cell, Jensen had been nervous, because meeting Danni had really thrown him. She was gorgeous and he was attracted to her. But he was also attracted to Jared.

Or was he? Maybe he was just making the best of a bad situation? Maybe he’d just convinced himself that he was attracted to Jared in the absence of female opportunities?

But no, there _are_ female opportunities. Both Alaina and Alona have made their interest clear. If he’d been attracted to either of them, they could’ve made it happen somehow. He just really isn’t interested; in either of them. So it would seem his attractions are very individual. He is specifically attracted to Jared, but also to Danni.  

Last night, when Jared had drawn him over to his bed, Jensen’s thoughts had still been buzzing. He’d gone willingly, though. They hadn’t fucked, but they’d enjoyed each other’s body intimately and Jensen had realized that not only was he genuinely attracted to Jared, he liked him a lot too. Jared made him feel cared for; Jared was family. Jensen imagined Danni offering herself to him and decided that while he would certainly be tempted, he wouldn’t take her up on the offer, because it might damage what he had with Jared. And Jared was important to him.

Jared clears this throat and Jensen comes back to the present.

“Stop worrying,” Jared says. “You’re going to be magnificent, I promise.”

Jensen turns to him and smiles and when Jared smiles back it hits Jensen right in the gut just _how_ important the other man has become to him. 

They have a light breakfast and then they’re marched through an underground tunnel to the cells beneath the Circus Maximus. Jensen’s nerves return full force when he walks past cages filled with ferocious giant beasts, the likes of which he’s never seen before. They also walk past cages filled with people who are praying, pleading, crying and rocking back and forth.

“The condemned,” Jared whispers. “Some will be outright executed, which they usually do during our lunch break. Others will be forced to confront the animals and still others will be forced into combat with us.”

Jensen’s eyes widen. “I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be honorable.”

Jared assures him that he won’t have to, that there are always plenty of volunteers to fight the condemned because they are seen as easy pickings.

“They’re not always, though,” Jared says. “Some have been soldiers. Some know how to fight and fight well.”

There are three different _Luduses_ fighting in the Games; their _Ludus_ , _Ludus_ Pellegrino and _Ludus_ Priscus. For the most part, the schools will be pitted against each other, but on occasion a gladiator will be slated to fight against someone from his own school. 

Jared explains yet again, that for the most part the trained gladiators all try to put on a good fight without killing each other, with some notable exceptions. He’s trying to reassure Jensen, to keep him calm, because Jensen is just about climbing the walls.

“I just want to get started,” he complains. “This waiting is nerve-wracking.”

At least he doesn’t have to wait long. He and Jared are one of the warm up acts and soon enough they are lining up to go out into the arena.

When they walk out onto the sand, Jensen is momentarily struck dumb and immobile. He hadn’t realized quite how big the arena was. Nor had he realized how many people there would be watching. There are so many people in the tiered seating surrounding the arena that Jensen doesn’t even know the numbers to count them, not even in his own language.

Still, their act is well-rehearsed and Jensen soon falls into the rhythm of it. Performing is even more fun than rehearsing. The crowd loves their silliness and their prat falls, laughing, clapping and stamping their feet. Jensen uses their feedback to fuel his performance and by the time they’re making their bows and leaving the arena, Jensen is grinning widely and flushed with exhilaration.

There are a couple more humorous acts (none as good as theirs, as far as Jensen is concerned) and then the bloodletting begins.

First are the animal fights; bears against wolves; then giant ferocious cats—sandy-colored giant cats called lions against giant stripy cats called tigers. A large swamp is then raised from beneath the arena; to the audience it must seem that is appears as if by magic, but Jensen is backstage so he can see the multitude of slaves that raise the swamp to the surface of the arena using a complicated system of pulleys. There are monsters in the swamp; green ones and grey ones, large with big teeth. Jared says that they are crocodiles and hippopotamuses. The crocodiles are terrifying beasts; they frighten Jensen more than the lions do. 

Next are the hunts. The gladiators from _Ludus_ Priscus specialize in those, slaughtering lions and tigers, bears and wolves in a fierce, but ultimately fairly one-sided competition. 

And then it’s lunchtime. Most of the patricians head out of the arena, because apparently it’s bad taste to watch the executions. The plebeians, though, stay to watch the condemned meet their end and seem to consider it great sport. Jensen is glad that he doesn’t have to watch, enjoying instead a bowl of barley and bean stew and some flat bread, deep in the bowels of the arena.

Eventually the upper class patrons drift back from their long lunches and the real contests start. The afternoon is a mixture of trained gladiators and condemned criminals who’ve been _damnatio ad gladium._ Jared makes Jensen watch all of the fights, because it’s important to get as much insight into your potential opponents as you can. The fights between the trained gladiators are skilful, if bloody competitions, and so far no-one has died. The fights that involve the condemned are a different story. They try, but ultimately they’re no match for their well-trained opponents.

Watching men—and women—die is not easy. For the first time in several weeks, Jensen really wants to go home.

There’s an up swell of cheering from the crowd and Jared points at the man walking into the arena.

“That’s Cain.”

He’s not what Jensen had expected. He’s a handsome older man with silver hair and a kind of lethal calmness about him that Jensen can’t help but appreciate. His fight is against one of the condemned and it is short and brutal. The body of Cain’s opponent is dragged through the _Porta Libitinensis_ and Cain raises his sword and spins slowly, revelling in the cheers and chants of the crowd.

There is a certain terrible practicality in the way the fights are organized. The crowd wants to see blood. They want to see death. The _Luduses_ of course, don’t want to lose their highly trained and skilled gladiators, so they intersperse skilled fights between trained gladiators with fights to the death against the _damnati_.  So far, Jensen is yet to see a trained gladiator die.

Still, watching Jared walk out into the arena is terrifying.

Jared’s opponent is from _Ludus_ Priscus. He’s much shorter than Jared, stocky and strong, but slow. It’s not a good fight. Jared is far superior in every way and although he holds back (just a little, not enough to be noticed unless you know what you’re looking for) and tries to make the fight entertaining, it’s really not. When Jared eventually gets his opponent pinned to the ground and the man yields, the crowd cheer. The loser is not granted missio and must kneel before Jared and accept his fate.

Jensen watches in horror as Jared’s lips move briefly and then he swiftly stabs his sword through his opponent’s neck, down into his heart.

The opponent’s body is dragged from the arena while a trumpet fanfare plays.

Jared bows to the Emperor’s box, then holds his sword up and salutes the crowd before turning slowly and walking backstage.

He hands his sword and helmet to Misha, who attempts to lead him into the bathing area. Jared shrugs him off, instead seeking out Jensen. He stands before him and Jensen can see the pain and self-loathing in his eyes.

Whatever he’s looking for in Jensen’s face, Jared must find it, because he moves into Jensen’s space and Jensen doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around Jared and hold him tightly.

“I made it quick,” Jared says, his voice muffled because his face is buried against Jensen’s neck. “He didn’t suffer.”

Jensen can feel Jared trembling and he murmurs platitudes against the shell of his ear until he feels Jared start to calm.

“What did you say to him?” Jensen asks.

Jared pulls back. “I said, _I’m sorry, brother. Close your eyes and be at peace_.”

Malik’s hand comes down on Jared’s shoulder. “You did all that you could. The _collegium_ will take care of him now. They will make sure he’s buried with all the appropriate rites and rituals.”

Jared nods and from somewhere off to the side, Brunus snorts.

“All hail the mighty _Colossus_ ,” Brunus sneers. “Your sorrow makes you weak, brother.”

Jensen turns to him and glares. “It makes him _human_.”

Misha takes Jared to clean up and to see the _medici_ , to make sure that any wounds are properly taken care of. While that’s happening, Jensen watches a couple more fights and then, just as Jared has returned to his side, it’s Jensen’s turn to walk out into the arena.

“Oh Gods,” he says, swallowing hard.

Jared kisses him quickly, but thoroughly. “You’ll come back to me, I know you will,” he looks at Jensen searchingly and then smiles. “I love you.”

Jensen nods. He turns and walks out onto the sand in a daze. His lips are tingling.

His opponent is a trained gladiator from _Ludus_ Pellegrino. Jensen doesn’t catch his name. He sneers at the sight of Jensen and begins to taunt him, his voice low.

“Prepare to die, _Novicus_. A pretty boy like you won’t last five minutes out here. Colossus should’ve taken Pellegrino’s job offer. Now, we’re going to take everything from him. Starting with you. What a pity I won’t get to fuck you. Still, I’ll get to stick one of my swords into you and—”

Jensen cuts him off. “Are we going to fight or are you planning to bore me to death?”

The provocation works and his opponent lunges. He’s a good fighter, skilled and fast. He has poor control of his emotions though, and Jensen is able to get under his skin with ease. Jensen knows within ten minutes that he’s not going to lose this fight. He fights with loose posture and a bored expression, as if he’s not really trying. He is trying; he’s just skilled enough to make it look like he’s clowning around. He even manages to smack his opponent on the ass with the flat of his sword at one point, which really makes the man lose his temper. The crowd is roaring with laughter and Jensen smirks. Pellegrino’s gladiator hits Jensen hard with everything he’s got and Jensen allows himself to be driven backward, as if he’s losing ground. The crowd senses that the fight is nearing its end and their excited hum becomes a roar of white noise. Jensen hears them chanting his stage name: _Venator! Venator! Venator!_

Jensen allows his opponent to take one more step and then he uses one of his scimitars to block and swings the other one high with deadly precision, severing his opponent’s head from his body. It falls with a dull thud and rolls, finishing up face-down in the sand.

The crowd screams its adulation.

The sand around Jensen turns sticky red.

Jensen bows to the Emperor, and then raises both of his scimitars and spins slowly, acknowledging the crowd. The roar becomes deafening. 

Jensen walks from the arena and straight into Jared’s waiting arms.

“I love you too,” he says.

\--

In many ways the days that follow are all the same. The tournament’s program never changes: First the _praegenarii_ , then the animal fights, then the hunts, then the executions and then the real gladiatorial combat.

Neither Jared nor Jensen have had to kill since the first day and they’ve both won all of their fights. On the fourth day, one of Erik’s men is badly wounded. Fortunately, the _medici_ thinks he will recover well with treatment and Jensen is horrified to learn that had the _medici_ decreed treatment too costly or time-consuming the man would have been put down like an animal.

Jared and Jensen spend every night cuddled together in Jared’s bed, reaffirming the fact that they are still alive. They don’t fuck; as pleasurable though fucking is, it does leave Jensen sore and aching and he can’t be even a grain of salt off his best if he is going to come through the Games relatively unscathed. They _do_ use their hands and tongues and lips to bring each other pleasure, although sometimes, they’re too tired and sore to do even that and simply fall asleep in each other’s arms.

By Day Five, Jensen is feeling confident, which is perhaps why everything starts to go wrong.

Jared is drawn to fight Brunus, which should be an easy fight, because members of the same _Ludus_ always try really hard not to hurt their comrades.

Unfortunately, Brunus seems to have decided to change the game plan.

“What is he doing?” Malik cries as they watch Brunus pull out one under-handed move after another, fighting dirty and making it obvious with every step and swing of his blade that’s he’s trying his hardest to kill his opponent.

“What does it look like?” Benito sneers, coming up behind them to watch.

Jensen is scared, but calm. He knows how Jared fights intimately and he knows that Jared is not in any real trouble, not yet anyway.

Beside Jensen, Ty is tense and Malik is almost frothing at the mouth, muttering many a dark thing about Brunus and his lost sense of brotherhood.

“Maybe Jared shouldn’t have interfered then,” Benito says. “We had just as much right to claim Jensen as he did.”

Jensen’s blood boils. His fists clench. He turns slowly and faces Benito, his eyes filled with fury.

“Oh come on,” Benito rolls his eyes. “You flopped over ass up for Jared without too much complaint. I’m sure we could’ve fucked the fight out of you just as easily.”

Jensen punches him. Repeatedly. Until he’s dragged off him by the guards.

He’s cuffed and strung up to a hook in the ceiling, his feet weighted down and not touching the floor. His armor is stripped and Jensen closes his eyes and hopes it won’t be too bad, because he still has to fight.

He gets a dozen lashes across his ass and thighs. He can tell that the guard’s heart is not really in it and in all honesty he’s had more painful spankings from his father as a child. Still, it’s humiliating to have all of this colleagues witness his punishment. 

At least Benito had been taken to the _medici_ and didn’t see it.

Jensen is released and he redresses carefully, his eyes averted and his cheeks red.

Ty pats him on the shoulder. “Good for you, brother,” he says. “You got him good. Worth every lash in my opinion.”

Jensen meets his eyes. “Yeah. How’s Jared doing?”

Malik is still watching the fight. Jensen doesn’t think he even turned around to watch Jensen’s punishment.

Malik shakes his head. “He’s going to have to kill him. He doesn’t want to. He’s trying so hard not to, but Brunus is obviously not going to settle for anything less than death; either Jared’s or his own.”

Jared already has a bloody gash in his upper arm and one of his legs is also streaked with blood.  

Jensen sees in Jared’s body language, the moment he accepts the inevitable. He steps thing up a notch and Jensen watches sadly as Jared calmly decapitates their colleague.

The crowd cheers. The trumpets play. Jared bows to the Emperor and raises his sword in salute. Brunus’s body is dragged from the arena.

Jared limps backstage.  He hands his sword and helmet to Misha and as soon as their eyes meet, Jensen can tell that Jared is devastated.

“Why?” he says. “Why would he do that?”

Jensen hugs him tightly and then sends him off with Misha.

“ _Medici_ first,” Misha says. “You need stitches.”

Jensen watches two fights and Malik has just walked out into the arena when Jared finally returns. His arm is bandaged, but he’s moving easily enough. His pupils, though, are like pin pricks and Jensen suspects he’s been given a tincture of poppy extract.

“I hear you got into it with Benito,” Jared says, coming up behind Jensen and slipping his arms around him.

“Asshole had it coming,” Ty growls.

“He really did,” Jensen agrees.

Jared nuzzles against his neck. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Jensen says, and they settle to watch Malik’s fight.

Malik is fighting Ramiel, _Secundus Palus_ of Ludus Pellegrino and it soon becomes clear that Ramiel intends to win and would prefer a quick kill to a long drawn out exhibition fight.

“Fuck,” Jared says, his arms tightening around Jensen. “What has got into everybody today?”

Jensen relaxes back against the comforting warmth of Jared’s body. “Pellegrino is trying to break you,” he says. “The man I fought on the first day told me that he’d been instructed to kill me, as a punishment to you for not saying yes to Pellegrino.”

“Malik can hold his own,” Jared says, but he sounds uneasy.

It’s a tough fight, long and hard-fought and both gladiators take some serious damage. Eventually, Malik concedes defeat and Ramiel glowers when the Emperor grants him _missio._

Malik gets to his feet and staggers toward the gate being used by their _Ludus_ , only to fall to his knees after a dozen steps. He gets up again and staggers a bit further before collapsing again.

“ _Medici_!” Jared calls. “Malik needs a stretcher!”

The Iberian is brought through the gate on a stretcher and Jared is by his side instantly, grasping his hand.

“Hold on,” he says. “The _medici_ will look after you. You’re going to be fine.”

Malik laughs weakly and blood froths from his mouth.

He reaches inside his armor and pulls out a small figure carved in bone, pressing it into Jared’s hand.

“No,” Jared says. “No. You’re going to be fine.”

“You know what to do,” Malik wheezes. “What I need.”

Tears well in Jared’s eyes and trickle down his cheeks.

“I will see you in the afterlife, brother,” Malik says. “But not for a while, all right?”

He shudders and groans and then his breathing becomes shallow and rattled and he closes his eyes. The _medici’s_ slaves carry him out to the treatment area.

Jared sinks to the floor looking lost, Malik’s bone carving clutched in his hand.

And then _Venator_ is called to the arena and his opponent is named and Jared’s face goes white.

“No,” he says. “Pellegrino was supposed to send him after me! No! I won’t let you, I won’t… Gods be damned, I should’ve said yes, I should’ve told Pellegrino yes. No, Jensen!”

Jared has to be restrained by the guards.

“Jared, stop,” Jensen says. “I’ve got this. But I’m gonna need you to be here for me, when I walk back out of that arena. All right?”

Jared stops struggling against the guards and slumps.

“All right,” he nods. “You come back to me, you hear?”

“I will.”

Jensen makes sure his armor is properly adjusted and Misha hands him his scimitars.

“May the gods be with you,” the service slave murmurs.

Jensen licks at his lips. “If they’re not,” he glances back at Jared, “look after him?”

Misha nods and Jensen walks out onto the sand.

Cain waits for him in the middle of the arena. He carries a small round shield and a dagger in one hand and a spear in the other.

“Let me guess,” he says to Jensen. “This is where you tell me that we don’t have to do this. That we can put on a good performance and both walk out of here.”

“Can we?” Jensen asks.

“No,” Cain shakes his head. “Pellegrino has promised me my freedom if I kill you today and your lover _Colossus_ tomorrow. I want my freedom, _Venator_ , more than anything.”

Jensen readies his swords and adopts a fighting stance.

Cain attacks.

The fight is a disjointed blur of brutality; of sword thrusts met and parried, of Cain driving Jensen backward, of Jensen regrouping and attacking.  He loses one of his scimitars. Then the other. He is thrown. He falls. And then Cain is on him, straddling his chest, one of  Jensen’s scimitars pressed against his throat.

“Really, I’m doing you a favour,” Cain says. “Colossus will be dead tomorrow too, so you won’t have to live without him.”

He sits back, the scimitar raised high and Jensen plucks Cain’s dagger from the scabbard at Cain’s waist and brings it up in an arc, severing Cain’s hand as he brings the scimitar down toward Jensen’s heart.

Cain screams and clutches at the bleeding stump that is his wrist and Jensen thrusts the dagger up beneath his rib cage.

Cain falls.

Jensen lies beneath him for a moment, his breath coming in gasps and then he struggles out from under Cain’s body and stands up.

The crowd is screaming his name. He raises the dagger and spins in a slow circle and then staggers from the arena. Jensen’s torso and arms are slippery with bodily fluids and his face is speckled with red. There’s blood in his eyes too.

Jared is waiting for him just inside the gate, his eyes wide and wild, showing too much white around the edges.

“Jensen?” he says. His voice sounds broken, like he’s been gargling sand.

Jensen collapses into his arms.   

“You’re all right,” Jared says, his hand rubbing comforting circles on Jensen’s back. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”


	5. Chapter 5

Malik is… _was_ …a paid up member of the Gladiator’s _collegium,_ which means he gets a proper burial. Jared knows the rites and the rituals that his brother needs to reach his afterlife and he makes sure that he gets them.

Brunus was also a paid up member of the _collegium_ , but Jared leaves his burial to Benito; he doesn’t even attend. Nor do most of the _Ludus’s_ gladiators.

Malik was popular. Brunus, less so.

Burials must always be taken care of quickly and with the Games still in progress, time is short. The burial rites for both Malik and Brunus take place late that afternoon, before supper. Jared has retrieved Malik’s set of little bone statues from the personal effects in his cell and he presses the appropriate one into his hand and says the prayer that Malik taught him, before helping to wrap him in his burial shroud and turn him onto his side, with his arms and legs bent. A sword is placed beside him.

Jared’s eyes sting with tears and he gives extra coin so that more words can be engraved upon Malik’s headstone; details of his _Ludus_ and his fights, as usual, but also his wife and children’s names and a short prayer, translated into Roman.

Supper that night is a somber affair.  

Afterwards, Jared gets up wordlessly and heads to their room. Jensen follows him.

They lie together in bed, fully dressed, and Jensen holds Jared while he cries silent tears, his whole body shaking. Eventually he falls asleep, but Jensen lies awake for a long time, his mind unable to settle. Malik is gone. Brunus too, although he can’t find it within himself to care too much about that. But he’s going to miss Malik. He’d come to like the man a great deal over their short time together.

And on top of losing Malik, he himself had come within a whisker of death today. Jensen swallows and puts his arm over his face. He has to endure five more years of this. May the gods have mercy on his soul.

Jared and Jensen finish their opening act on the final day of the Games. They take their final bows to thunderous applause and the crowd chanting their names. They are as enamored of _Venator_ as they are of _Colossus_ ; Jared knew his man was destined to be a star.  Killing Cain has truly established him as a gladiator to be reckoned with and Jared knows that Jensen’s youthful good looks make his incredible skill seem even more remarkable.

The Lanista is waiting for them when they arrive backstage and he looks pleased.

“Excellent performance, _Venator_ ,” he says. “All the men want to be you and all the women want to bed you,” he frowns. “Actually a lot of the men want to bed you too if the offers I’m getting for you are anything to go by.”

Jared can’t quite help the threatening way he steps into Marcus’s space.

“Oh simmer down, you giant elk. By the way, I want a word with you. Come.”

Jensen goes for a rub down and Jared follows the Lanista into the small office he uses during the Games.

“Have you given any more thought to my offer?” he says.

“I have a counter offer,” Jared says.

Marcus raises his eyebrow. “Do tell.”

“I retire and you sell Jensen’s contract to me.”

“No,” Marcus says.

“What? You’re not even prepared to negotiate? Jensen shouldn’t even be here. He was a freeman; he didn’t commit a crime, he wasn’t in debt. His sale was illegal.”

Marcus meets Jared’s eyes. His own are flat and expressionless. “And you can prove that?”

Jared shakes his head. “Not right now.”

“Prove it and we’ll talk again. Until then, Jensen’s already a superstar. And if I’m losing you, the _Ludus_ needs a superstar.”

“What if I didn’t leave?” Jared says.

Marcus smiles, a really smarmy, self-satisfied smile that Jared is itching to smack off his face. “I’m listening,” he says.

Later, after some intensive negotiation, they’ve hashed out an agreement that Jared thinks he can live with. He didn’t get everything he wanted, but he’s getting more than he dared hope for.

“What did the Lanista want?” Jensen asks as soon as Jared returns to the back stage area.

“To talk about my plans for the future.”

Jensen nods and turns away. “I’m going to miss you.”

Jared rubs at his jaw. “What if I didn’t leave?”

Jensen rounds on him, eyes flashing angrily. “Don’t you dare,” he says. “I want you out. I want you safe. Yes, I’ll miss you, but I’d rather miss you because you were out there living the life you deserve, than miss you because you were dead! No one’s invincible, Jared. Anyone can have a bad day.”

Jared puts an arm around Jensen’s shoulders and lightly kisses the top of his head. “All right,” he says. “I hear you.”

“Promise me, Jared. Promise you won’t do anything stupid.”

“I promise,” Jared says.

They can argue over the definition of stupid later.

\--

The afternoon of the last day of the Games is a little different. Instead of a bunch of individual fights, there are two epic battles. After the executions, the arena is transformed into a jungle scene and a hunt is staged, with _Ludus_ Priscus doing battle with all of the animals that are still alive. Any of the _noxii_ , the criminals condemned to gladiatorial combat who have survived so far are sent into the hunt without weapons. Any who survive will be offered a place with one of the gladiator schools, because it’s rare (and impressive) for anyone to survive that long.

After the hunt, the arena is transformed yet again, this time into a battlefield so that _Ludus_ Pellegrino and _Ludus_ Armentarius can re-enact The Battle of Metaurus, one of the most important battles of the second Punic war. As _Ludus_ Armentarius has so far earned the most points during the Games, they get to be Rome.   

As _Primus Palus_ , Jared gets to be the General. In the past, it has always been Malik by his side as his second in command. This time, it’s Jensen.

Jensen always beats Jared at _Latrunculi_ and he had usually beaten Malik too, so Jared already knew he was good at strategy. The way Jensen sees an actual battlefield is a revelation and Rome is well on its way to a more decisive win against Carthage than the win they achieved in real life when Jared feels a sharp sting in the back of his left upper arm.

It’s a small dart.

He pulls it out and turns, frowning, and looks around. In the nearby stands he sees Marcus Pellegrino holding some kind of long pipe; a blowpipe he realizes, as he starts to feel woozy. Pellegrino gives Jared a little wave, grins and moves off into the crowd.

“Jensen,” Jared says, holding out the dart.

His knees begin to buckle.

Jensen’s eyes widen. “Where did it hit you?”

Jared shows him.

Jensen reaches up underneath the skirt of his leather armor and tears a strip off his loin cloth. He ties it around Jared’s arm, above the dart puncture and then tells him to sit down behind the makeshift barricade they’ve been using for protection.

“Gonna finish this and get you to the _medici_ ,” he says.

Jensen gathers a raiding party and then shouts, “Attack!” and they swarm forward and overwhelm their opposition. Jensen captures the opposition General and secures his surrender. It’s all over within ten minutes.

Jared is impressed. And a little turned on. But mostly he’s dizzy and having trouble staying awake. The last thing he sees is Misha approaching him with a stretcher.

\--

The first thing that Jared sees when he wakes up is Genevieve’s face, close to his own. She breaks into a smile when he opens his eyes.

“Welcome back,” she says. Her smile brightens. “Pellegrino is _pissed_.”

Jared licks at his dry lips and tries to reply, but his tongue feels too big and too thick for his mouth and his throat feels like it’s full of sand and he ends up coughing.

He’s hauled upright and a cup is pressed to his lips. He drinks; sweet clear water that refreshes his mouth and soothes his throat. He opens his eyes (when did he close them?) and sees Jensen holding the cup. It’s Jensen’s strong arm around his back, holding him up.

“Hi,” Jared croaks.

Jensen’s mouth is a flat line. “Don’t you do that to me again,” he says.

Jared frowns. “What? And why is Pellegrino pissed? He shot me with a poisoned dart!”

Genevieve sits down beside him, across from Jensen. “You nearly died,” she says. “If Misha hadn’t insisted that your Lanista contact me, you would’ve. The poison that Pellegrino used was one of my grandmother’s recipes; I also have the recipe for the antidote.”

“Oh,” Jared takes a moment to process that and then he frowns again. “So Pellegrino’s angry that I didn’t die?” 

Genevieve’s smile is wicked. “That and also quite a few prominent people saw what he did and complained that it was cheating. The Emperor agreed and had Pellegrino whipped and fined. Also, your _Ludus_ utterly humiliated his in the final Battle, thanks to Jensen here, and he lost two of his best gladiators these games too, both at Jensen’s hands. Suffice to say he now hates Jensen with a fiery passion.”

Jensen shrugs. “And according to Armentarius, after his flogging Pellegrino was still muttering about you, saying that you should’ve been his and you should’ve said yes to him.”

Genevieve scowls. “He’s a devil.”

There’s a loud throat clearing and they all look up. The Lanista has entered the room.

“As touching as this reunion is,” he says, “we need to move things along. Genevieve, my dear, you have Colossus booked for the evening. Now I don’t care whether you fuck him or feed him grapes and mop his brow, but you need to do it in one of the designated rooms, not my infirmary. And Jensen, I have a client awaiting your services.”

Jensen swallows and when his eyes meet Jared’s, Jared’s heart breaks. Jensen is terrified and trying to hide it by being angry.

Jensen walked from the infirmary without argument, because he didn’t want to upset Jared. But he would be damned if he was going to submit to _servicing clients_ without a fight. And boy did he fight. It didn’t do any good; he still ended up tied naked to a bed in one of the designated room, but at least he didn’t go down easily; he made them work for it.   

Jensen is so cold that he’s shaking. He’s angry too. Maybe some of the shaking is because he’s angry. He pulls against his bindings and tries to work the gag out of his mouth; to no avail. The door opens and man with a light, neatly trimmed beard walks into the room. He’s wearing a white and brown toga, belted at the waist and he approaches Jensen slowly, with a smile that Jensen finds very unsettling.

“Jensen,” he says. “Such a beautiful name. We’re going to be very close, you and I. Very close indeed.”

His accent is strange, his voice nasally.

Jensen stares at the ceiling. He spots one of the spy holes and thinks he sees some movement behind it. Great. Whatever horrible thing is about to happen to him, there’s going to be an audience for it.

“My name is Alastarius. Remember it. You’re going to be screaming it later.”

Alastarius pulls a small knife from within the folds of his toga. “We’re going to have so much fun,” he says.

\--

Jensen stopped screaming a while ago. His throat is just too raw; too sore and he doesn’t need to add to his body’s overwhelming pain.

There’s a chest in the corner of the room, ornately carved with winged penises. Jensen hadn’t taken much notice of it until Alastarius dragged it next to the bed and opened it.

Periodically he gets a new torment out of it. The first had been a smallish penis replica with a flared base. Alastarius had coated it in oil and pushed it into Jensen’s ass.

That had been the first violation, shocking when it happened, but in retrospect the easiest torment that he has had to endure.

Alastarius plans to fuck him later. He’s told Jensen that many, many times. It seems though, that Alastarius needs to inflict a significant amount of pain and blood-letting in order to get an erection, and so far, he’s still mostly flaccid.

Jensen really wishes he wasn’t. Jensen just wants Alastarius to fuck him and go away.

Instead, the man peels a little more skin from Jensen’s inner thigh.

Alastarius sighs. “So pretty when you cry,” he says. “It makes your beautiful big eyes look so very green. Like shiny emeralds.”

Jensen is covered in tiny nicks, all over his body, except for his face, neck, hands and genitals.  In various places, mostly his thighs, chest and stomach, several layers of coin-sized patches of skin have been peeled off, and, occasionally, Alastarius picks up a small leather flogger and whips Jensen’s cock and balls with it.

This is the man Genevieve’s father wants her to marry. Jensen can only assume he doesn’t know about Alastarius’s sexual proclivities.

Or maybe he just doesn’t care. Maybe a daughter is viewed almost the same way as a slave; property of her father to be disposed of in the way that brings him the most profit.

There’s a knock on the door and Jensen hopes—oh, how he hopes—that it’s Armentarius coming to tell Alastarius that his time is up.

It’s Misha, bringing in an _amphora_ of wine and a platter of fruit.

“Just set it on the table,” Alastarius says and then he picks up the flogger and brings it down hard on Jensen’s balls.

Jensen’s raw throat manages another scream.  

When Jensen comes to, Alastarius is sitting at the table, eating fruit and drinking wine.  His head is tilted to one side and he’s examining Jensen in a way that fills Jensen with dread.  

Alastarius takes a long drink of wine. He blinks slowly.

“Perhaps I should turn you into a whole new creature,” he says.

His voice is slurring and Jensen wonders how much wine he’s had to drink.

“Perhaps I should make you a eunuch,” Alastairius says.

Terror seizes hold of Jensen and he cries and trembles and pulls at his binding, shaking his head and begging from behind his gag.

He doesn’t notice the vapours that begin to pour from the spy holes in the ceiling, not until Alastarius keels over and falls flat on his face, and by then he’s beginning to breathe them in himself. For one brief moment he panics and then he slides into a deep sleep.

\--

“He’ll be fine. The vapours aren’t dangerous. The Vestal Virgins use a less potent version of them for their trances and this particular version is used by some surgeons to induce sleep in their patients.”

Jensen recognizes the voice as belonging to Genevieve.

“Gods above,” he hears Jared say, the pain and anger obvious is his voice, “I can’t believe what that monster did to him. Not even Jamelus went that far.”

Jensen opens his eyes. He tries to say Jared’s name, but his throat won’t work.

“Jensen!”

Jared looks like he wants to throw his arms around Jensen and never let go, but he’s holding himself back. Jensen is thankful because he can’t stand the thought of someone touching him right now.

“Hi Jensen,” Genevieve comes into view. “Misha was using the spy holes to keep an eye on you. He knew Alastarius’s reputation and was worried that things might get out of hand. When things started to get really bad, Misha came and told Jared and me what was going on. That wine that Misha served him? It was laced with mandrake. One of my grandmother’s recipes. Your _Ludus_ had the necessary ingredients right here in the infirmary. We had hoped that the wine would be enough to knock him out, but we had the concoction necessary to create the vapours on standby, just in case.”

“And just as well,” says Misha, coming to stand next to the bed where Jensen is lying.  “When I heard him talking about turning you into a eunuch, I knew I had to act.”

“Officially,” they all startle as Lanista Marcus Armentarius appears, seemingly out of nowhere, “Alastarius got blind drunk and damaged my property, before falling into an alcohol induced coma. I’ve had him thrown out and I won’t be allowing him to purchase our additional services ever again. My people will also be talking to his people about compensation for the damage caused to my property. I plan to play the part of the wronged owner with a lot of gusto and shouting. In the meantime, the Lady Genevieve will also be banned from the premises,” Marcus looks at her apologetically. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I’ve just realized who your grandmother was, and I don’t trust you not to knock me out in my sleep and stage some sort of coup with my gladiators.”

Marcus turns to Misha. “As for you, boy, you’ve got a punishment coming for following the Lady Genevieve’s orders instead of mine.”

Misha looks spectacularly unperturbed by this pronouncement. In fact, he even winks at Jensen.

“And you,” Marcus turns to Jared, “better be on your best behavior for the next week until your contract is up, because I can easily renegotiate the terms we agreed to.”

By the time Marcus finishes speaking he’s standing beside Jensen’s bed. He looks down at him, his eyes sad and his mouth a grim line.

“I’m glad you weren’t hurt worse,” he says, before turning on his heel and stalking from the room.

“Guards!” he shouts. “Show the Lady Genevieve the way out. Misha. With me.”

Jared sits down beside Jensen and takes hold of his hand, rubbing his thumb gently across the pulse point in his wrist. “I’m sure he’ll remember to have me locked in my cell soon. Until then, I’m just going to sit here and hold onto you.”

Jensen likes that. He wants to spend every single minute that he can with Jared, because very soon they’re going to be parted, possibly forever.

Unfortunately, Jensen falls back to sleep within moments, Jared’s big hand wrapped comfortingly around his.

\--

Jensen is only kept in the infirmary for a day. His wounds may be painful, but they’re superficial and once the _medici_ has put ointment on his cuts and bruises and a poultice and bandages on the places where the skin has been peeled off, there’s not much they can do for him. Besides, just because the Games are over, doesn’t mean training is and the Lanista wants him back in harness, doing what he’s supposed to be doing.

Jensen arrives in the main compound just before supper. Ty and Milo are glad to see him back. They don’t talk about Jensen’s wounds, nor about the stiff way he’s moving. They do talk about Malik, sharing funny stories, poignant memories, tales of triumphs and near misses. Jensen can’t stop looking at Malik’s empty chair and he’s acutely aware that in just a few days, Jared’s chair will be empty too.

Back in their cell, Jensen climbs into his own bed for the first time in weeks.

“So,” Jared says, his head propped up on one hand and his eyes focused on Jensen. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” Jensen says. And then, “I’m fine. Honestly.”

“All right,” Jared sounds dubious. “Do you want to come and sleep over here then? We don’t have to do anything; I just…want you next to me.”

Jensen sighs. “I want that too. But everything hurts right now. I need…space.”

“All right,” Jared says. “Sleep well.”

Surprisingly, Jensen does.

\--

The next Games aren’t for another four months, so training is less intensive than it has been since Jensen first joined the _Ludus_.

Joined. Jensen snorts at the word with its connotations of choice.

In fact, he’s happy to be training, because it keeps his mind busy and when Jensen’s left to his own thoughts these days, his mind tends to go to some pretty dark places.

The fight training is light and doesn’t overtax his aching body too much, but the ‘how to die like a warrior’ refresher is not helping his mind stay out of dark places. They’d been taught the arena rituals; taught how to die gracefully with honor in basic training, but the Lanista had decided that a refresher course was in order, for everyone. 

Jared no longer has to train with them. In fact, the Lanista has him running training sessions, and he’s good at it. He understands the theory, but he also understands which skills, practically, are of the most use out in the arena.

After supper that evening, when Ty and Milo have gone off to play dice, Jensen puts a hand to Jared’s arm.

“You’re staying, aren’t you?”

Jared’s nose wrinkles. “Sort of. I’ve agreed to work as a trainer for as long as you’re here and to perform as a _praegenarii,_ with you only. I’ll get paid, but room and board isn’t included,” Jared shares a wry smile with Jensen at the idea that being kept prisoner constitutes room and board, “so I’ll have to find myself somewhere to live that’s close by. Marcus tells me that there is an _insula_ not too far away from the _Ludus_ that has rooms for rent. He says the owner will rent to freed slaves and retired gladiators.”

“What’s an _insula_?” Jensen asks.

“It’s a building that ordinary people can live in. There are several floors; maybe six or seven. The ground floor is shops and businesses, the rest of the floors have living quarters. The higher up you go, the smaller and cheaper the living quarters are,” Jared smiles. “I’ll be looking for something on the very top floor.”

Jared looks up at Jensen, his eyes big, dark and pleading and Jensen wonders how he could have ever been scared of the mighty Colossus.

“Please tell me you’re not mad,” Jared says.

Jensen reaches out and takes hold of his hand “I’m not mad. You won’t be in any danger and I’ll still get to see you every day. I just didn’t want you fighting in the arena if you didn’t have to. This? This is a good thing.”

Jared smiles and seems about to speak when they’re interrupted by a guard.

“Visitor for you _Venator_.”

Jensen’s eyes widen and he looks at Jared, his panic steadily rising.

“It’s going to be all right,” Jared squeezes his hand. “I’m pretty sure it’s Danni.”

Jensen’s jaw drops. “Really?”

Jared nods. “The girls had this little plan cooked up. Marcus pulled you out of circulation for a couple of days because of your injuries. I’m guessing you’re back on the roster now, so the plan comes into effect.”

“ _Venator_ , move it!” says the guard.

Jensen stands up. He’s still nervous, but no longer on the verge of hyperventilating and throwing up.

As he walks from the room, Jensen can feel Jared’s eyes on him every step of the way.

\--

Jensen is shown into one of the designated cells and it is Danni. She’s sitting waiting for him at the small table with a glass of wine in one hand. The table is laden with fruit and cakes.

“Have a seat, handsome,” Danni purrs.

Jensen goes and sits beside her and the guard closes and locks the door behind him.

Danni pours him a glass of wine and Jensen has to school himself not to drink it all in one go. He takes a sip and then says, “So, uh, you don’t actually want to do anything, right?”

“Gods no,” Danni says. “You’re utterly gorgeous and one day I would like to paint you, preferably nude, but you don’t have big enough breasts for my taste.”

Jensen is blushing at the thought of being laid out naked for Danni to paint. “I’m glad,” he says, “because I think you’re stunning and I like breasts too, but I like Jared more.”

“Interesting,” Danni wrinkles her nose. “These chairs are so uncomfortable. Let’s move everything over to the bed and have a picnic.”

They set themselves up on the bed and Jensen has several more glasses of wine, a whole bunch of grapes and several honey cakes.

“So what’s the plan?” he asks around a mouthful of cake crumbs. “Jared said you and Genevieve had a plan?”

The plan, it turns out, was to book both Jared and Jensen every night for the next two weeks, which must’ve cost a small fortune and Jensen is a little stunned that the girls would do that, just to keep them safe. Genevieve, of course, has been banned from the _Ludus_ , but she paid Marcus for Jared’s time and insisted that he keep the money and let Jared have the free time. They have a contract and she trusts Marcus to honor it. The general consensus is that Marcus Armentarius may be little better than a pimp, but he is a man of his word and a stickler for honoring a deal.

Unfortunately, Alastarius had beaten them to Jensen on the first night. He had wanted to be the one to take Jensen’s virginity and Danni is amused when Jensen tells her that Jared beat him to it anyway. Danni has managed to book him for the next two weeks. Apparently, the good people of Rome tend to have a short attention span and Danni thinks that by the time her bookings are over, people won’t be as likely to want to book him for themselves, they’ll have moved on to some new interest.

“It’s all bread and circuses in this town,” Danni says with a shake of her head. “The Emperor makes sure there’s food and he keeps everyone distracted with a never-ending parade of entertainment. People’s minds are dulled by things of no real importance and they’re lulled into a false sense of well-being, which makes them less likely to become rebellious when Rome levies new taxes or tightens up on freedoms. The whole thing will collapse eventually, it’s inevitable, but,” she smiles brightly, “not in our lifetime.”

Jensen enjoys his evenings with Danni. She’s not only beautiful, she’s also intelligent and articulate and a strong believer in fighting for the things that are important to you. He learns a lot about Roman society and politics, and about Danni’s business. Her father died with no male heir, so the vineyard went to Danni’s mother. Between the two of them and a loyal staff, they’ve made the business more successful than it ever was under Danni’s father. Danni has a good head for business and she knows how to flirt and flatter and persuade men to do her bidding. 

“I’ll never marry,” she tells him, and then pulls a face. “Genevieve will have to. Her father will make her.”

“Does her father still favor Alastarius?” It takes Jensen a few goes to get the name out.

Danni nods. “She’s expecting him to announce their betrothal any time.”

“And does he know what a monster Alastarius is?”

Danni shrugs. “But don’t you worry about Gen,” she says. “My girl can take care of herself. And Alastarius too if it comes to it.”

Jensen remembers something else that he’s been wondering about.

“Oh,” he says, “Who is Gen’s grandmother and why does Gen always mention her recipes?”

Danni chuckles. “Don’t spread this around,” she says, “but Gen’s grandmother was Julius Caesar’s _Apothecary_. Officially. Unofficially, she was his chief poisoner. Gen inherited all of her grandmother’s recipes, both the healing ones and the more deadly ones. If Alastarius hurts her, I can guarantee he’ll only do it once.”

\--

On the last evening before Jared is due to be granted his freedom, Danni lets Jensen go a little early; not early enough for the Lanista to try to arrange another booking for him, but early enough that Jared has just started to undress for bed when Jensen arrives.

For the first time in over a week, Jensen slips into bed beside Jared. They kiss languidly and then Jared slides down the bed and takes Jensen’s cock in his mouth.

Jensen is still sore; the welts have healed, although there are still bruises; but he wants to share pleasure with Jared one last time, before his lover has to leave. Maybe they’ll be able to sneak off for a quickie during training, but maybe they won’t and besides, Jensen doesn’t want Jared to lose his job if that’s not something that’s allowed.

Jared is very gentle with him and soon the discomfort gives way to pleasure and Jared waits until Jensen is on the very brink of coming and then he stops.

Jensen groans.

“Pull your knees back,” Jared says, as he reaches into the chest for the pot of ointment they keep in there.

It’s not so long ago that a _medici_ had given him that same instruction and Jensen had completely lost his composure. He’d kicked the _medici_ and he’d fought, earning himself a whipping.

Now, the instruction may still make him blush, but it also makes his cock throb, the tip getting wet as pre-come dribbles out in anticipation of what is to come.

Jared opens him up slowly; carefully; reverentially; and he waits until Jensen starts begging before he coats his own dick with the oily ointment and pushes inside.

The initial stretch burns, just like it did the first time, but then the fullness feels good and Jared’s dick is stimulating him in all the right places and Jensen stuffs his wrist in his mouth to hold back the sounds of his pleasure. He doesn’t want their performance graded again.

Jared is looming over him, holding himself up on his powerful, muscular arms and his long hair is hanging down around his face. Jensen thinks that Danni should paint Jared. Or perhaps they should find a good sculptor to make a life-sized statue of him. The thought makes Jensen smile.

Jared thrusts hard and swivels his hips and Jensen has to bite his wrist extra hard to keep from moaning loudly.

“Touch yourself,” Jared says, repeating the movement.

Jensen lets the fingers of his other hand graze lightly across the head of his dick and that’s all it takes. He comes with a long drawn out moan at the exact same moment that he feels the pulse of Jared’s release, deep within him.

“I’m going to miss this,” Jared says later, when they’re cleaned up and lying together.

Jensen is lying on his side. Jared is tucked in behind him and has his arms wrapped around Jensen, holding him tightly.

“I’m going to miss the snuggling most of all,” Jared says.

Jensen smiles. “Sap. You know, when I first heard of you, I thought you were terrifying. I actually thought you might eat us.”

Jared laughs. “Well,” he says, his tone lightly teasing. “I may eat you out one day. But don’t worry, you’ll enjoy it!”

\--

Gladiators are big on ritual and so, of course, there is a ceremony where Jared is presented with the _rudis_ ; the ritual wooden sword that means he’s earned his freedom. There are speeches and a banquet of sorts and it’s a bittersweet moment for both Jared and Jensen, because while they are both happy that Jared is gaining his freedom, Jensen isn’t, and it will be five years before they can be together as freemen, the way they want to be together. If it ever happens. Jared may have earned his freedom, but many gladiators never do.

Jensen’s cell is empty without Jared’s stuff in it, but Jared promises that he’ll buy Jensen some furniture and have it delivered. Jensen knows that Jared has money, but he only remembered today that now that the first Games are over, he has some earnings too. Given that he performed as _praegenarii_ and won every fight he took part in, his earnings are not insubstantial. Now that Jared is leaving, Jensen is _Primus Palus_ , which means a private cell and privileges too.

“All right,” Jared says. “I have to go. I love you.”

“Love you too, man,” Jensen replies.

Jared looks around the cell one final time and then squeezes Jensen hard, before striding away without looking back.

Jensen sits down. He’s all right. Really he is.

Jared will be back tomorrow. They’ll still see each other. In the meantime, he has his own cell, which will soon be filled with furniture, and if he thinks about it, his position is not so different from the position he expected to be in when he left his village with Quintus. A term in the _Auxilia_ is twenty-five years—something Jensen hadn’t realized when he left home. In many ways, he’s better off being a gladiator for five years and earning a substantial amount of coin. So what if he’ll be marked as an _infame_ for life? That just means he has nothing to lose and a relationship with Jared is not a risk.

There’s a knock on the cell door and Jensen looks up to see Misha hovering in the doorway.

“Come in,” Jensen says, patting the mattress beside him. “I never got to thank you properly for saving me from Hell.”

Misha waggles his eyebrows. “Ooh, what did you have in mind?”

Jensen rolls his eyes. “Saying _thank you_. Properly. So. Thank you.”

Misha grins. “You’re welcome. Any time.”

Jensen hesitates and then says, “I hope you didn’t get punished too badly.”

“Nah,” Misha stretches his legs out. “It was more like foreplay really. Marcus and I have…a thing.”

“All right. Good. Please don’t give me details.”

Misha smirks. “I actually stopped by to see how you’re doing? Jared gaining his freedom is a big deal. How are you holding up?”

Jensen considers the question. “I’m fine,” he says. “Great actually. The last thing I expected to find here was friendship and love, but that’s exactly what I found. For the first time since all this started, I don’t feel like I made a mistake. I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

Misha salutes him and then Ty and Milo arrive and drag Jensen out of his cell for a game of dice.


	6. Chapter 6

**EPILOGUE**

Jensen accepts the surrender of Pellegrino’s general and then bows to the Emperor who gives him the thumbs up. The crowd roars and Jensen lifts his sword in the air and spins slowly, saluting them. He beckons his team forward and they all come and accept the crowd’s applause and adulation. Meanwhile, Pellegrino’s gladiators stomp out through the losers’ gate.

The moment Jensen is backstage again he is tackle-hugged by Jared.

“That was brilliant!” Jared cries. “You were brilliant!”

Misha comes up beside them and Jensen hands him his swords.

Jared kisses Jensen passionately and then pulls back and holds Jensen at arm’s length.

“My face is splattered with blood,” Jensen says reproachfully.

Jared shrugs. “You know, you’ve really filled out in the last four months. You’re taller and your muscles are nearly as big as mine. It’s incredibly sexy.”

Jensen wrinkles his nose. He can smell himself and it’s not pleasant. “Thank you, but I really need to bathe.”

Jared’s grin is wicked. “Maybe we can persuade Misha to let us have some unsupervised time in the massage area.”

“Hello, boys,” says Lanista Marcus Arementarius, appearing suddenly behind them.

Jared jumps. “I’m starting to think you have mystical powers, the way you always just appear,” he frowns. “Misha too.” 

Marcus stares at him as if he’s an idiot. “I need to see you two in my office,” he says.

“Shouldn’t I bathe first?” Jensen asks. “I stink.”

“Bathing can wait,” Marcus says. “Follow me.”

Jensen has come through his second Games largely unscathed, but he does have a cut on his thigh that required stitches. He stretches his leg out in front of him as he sits in front of Marcus’s desk. Leather armor is really not comfortable to sit in.

“Shortly before he gained his freedom,” Marcus begins, “Jared came to me with some troubling news. He told me that the man who sold you to the Slave Market had done so illegally, but he couldn’t prove it. I told him to come and see me again when he had proof. And I put the services of my _advocate_ at his disposal.”

Jensen looks at Jared, who’s smiling, and his heart begins to race.

“I won’t bore you with the details,” Marcus says, “suffice to say that this morning, I received documentary proof that the papers Quintus provided, showing that you owed a debt to him, were in fact fraudulent. Lucius—the man who owns the Slave Market—is also satisfied that your sale was not in fact legal. He has refunded the money I paid for you and has given me generous compensation for the pain and suffering this error has caused me.”

Jensen raises an eyebrow at that.

“So,” Marcus reaches into the drawer of his desk and pulls out a document. “Without further ado, here are your manumission papers. And here are all your earnings,” he puts a heavy purse down on the desk in front of Jensen. “You’re free to go.”

Jensen stares at him. “I…what?”

Marcus flaps his hands at Jensen “Get out of here. Go and bathe, say good-bye to everyone, take what you can carry and I’ll have all the rest of your stuff sent to the address that Jared gave me.”

Jensen continues to gape, so Jared hauls him to his feet, picks up the papers and the purse and drags him bodily from the office.

“Oh, and Jensen?” Jensen looks back at his former owner. “Quintus? The man who sold you? He was asked to repay the funds he received for you and was unable to do so. Apparently his business hasn’t being doing well. Lucius took his son in payment. Now. Off you go.”

They walk toward the baths and stop just outside.

Jensen turns to face Jared.

“I can go?” he says.

He feels dazed, like he just took a blow to the head.

“You can go,” Jared says. “You’re a free man.”

Jensen doesn’t think anyone can blame him for the tears that fall.

\--

As they walk down the street, away from the _Ludus_ , Jensen tries to articulate his feelings. He’s elated, but also scared. He can’t quite believe this is real and he half expects someone to come after him, to tell him there’s been a mistake or to accuse him of being a runaway slave.  When they walk past the Slave Market, he tenses and Jared puts a hand to his shoulder.

“You’re all right,” he says. “They won’t take you again.”

Jensen nods. The pack that he brought with him from home is on his back—Marcus was given it, along with Jensen—and he can feel his heavy coin purse inside it.

“Jared,” he says. “I think I want to buy a slave.”

“Why?” Jared says and Jensen can tell from his tone that he’s concerned about Jensen’s intentions.

Jensen huffs. “Really?” he says. “Because the sins of the father are not the sins of the son. Because Quintus is an asshole and I don’t want an innocent boy to suffer because his father is an asshole.”

Jared beams and half an hour later they leave with a frightened, teary-eyed ten-year-old boy by the name of Gaius in tow.

It’s an hour’s walk to the small plot of land that Jared brought off Danni and her mother. The house is still being built and until then, Jared and Jensen will be staying in Danni’s house, in the guest suite.

Danni’s housekeeper takes Gaius under her wing. Danni’s slaves are more like family than chattel and Jensen is content that the boy will be safe here—at least until he and Jared figure out what they should do with him. Maybe he can live in Danni’s household and just come and help them at harvest time? Jensen shrugs to himself and refocuses on the conversation between Jared and Danni. They’ve got time to figure out all the details of their new life.

“It was a lovely ceremony,” Danni is saying. “And then, alas, Alastarius got sick. Slowly, but surely he got sicker and sicker. We don’t think he’s going to die any time soon,” the glimmer is Danni’s eye is wicked, “but he is permanently incapacitated. His poor wife comes to stay with me for comfort and company as often as she can. And while Alastarius remains alive, her father won’t try to marry her off again,” Danni shakes her head. “You know Gen would’ve given him a fair go if he hadn’t hurt you, Jensen. He put you through Hell and now Gen’s sent him straight there himself. Anyway, she’ll be here soon and we’ll all have supper together.”

“Thanks for letting us stay here,” Jared says, putting an arm around Jensen and pulling him close.

Danni beams. “You’re welcome. Though our motives aren’t entirely selfless, you know. I get a lot of pushy suitors. I’m sure the threat of having _Colossus_ and _Venator_ set on them will keep them on their best behavior.”

Jensen yawns and curls in toward Jared, putting one hand over his heart. Jared looks down at him and smiles before leaning down and pressing their lips together.

It’s been an absolutely incredible day and Jensen is really excited to see what tomorrow will bring.

_The End._


	7. Translations

              

#  **Translations**

**Latin to English:**

Amphora – Wine jug

Apothecary – Ancient-era pharmacist

Armentatrius – Shepherd

Caldarium – A hot communal bath

Catamitus – Gay man

Cingulum – A wide leather belt or girdle that protected a gladiator’s waist and stomach

Coena libera – Public banquet

Collegium – Union; trade or industry association

Colossus – Giant

Curro – Run

Damnatio ad gladium – Condemned to death by the sword

Denarii – Unit of currency

Dimachaerus – A type of Roman gladiator, lightly armored, fought with two long curved swords (scimitars)

Doctores – Trainers

Fricatrix – Lesbian

Frigidarium – A cold communal bath

Familia – Literally ‘family’, but also used for members of the same household or troupe

Inclinaverit oculos – Lower your eyes

Insula – Apartment building, typically with shops on the ground floor and cheap residences above

Lanista – The owner of a Gladiator School

Latrunculi – ‘Game of Soldiers’, a popular Roman board game, similar to chess

Liber – Free

Ludus – School

Medici - Doctor

Non in exercitu – Not the army

Non is Dux – Not a General

Non venale – Not for sale

Novicus – New recruits who have yet to be fully trained

Noxii – Criminals sentenced to death by gladiatorial combat

Patricians – Roman elite ruling class

Plebeians – Lower class Roman people

Porta Libitinensis – Gate of Death

Praegenarii – Opening act

Praenomen – First given name (only used by close family and very close friends)

Primus Palus – Literally ‘first pole’, the Ludus’s number one gladiator

Puer delicates – A kept boy, the term was often applied to male child slaves used specifically by the patricians for sexual gratification

Quadraginta millia– Forty thousand

Regulus – Little King

Rudis – Wooden training sword; also the ceremonial sword presented to a gladiator when they gain their freedom

Scimitar – A long, curved sword

Secundus Palus – Literally ‘second pole’, term used for the second best gladiator

Servus – Slave

Servus mercator – Slave Market

Strigil – Knife used in the baths for scraping off dirt

Subligar – Underwear

Tepidarium – A heated bathroom and general grooming area with massage tables

Tirones – Recruits who have been trained, but who have not yet fought in the Arena

Thraex – A type of Roman gladiator, armed with a shield and a short sword with a slightly curved blade. Fairly lightly armored, but wore a helmet in combat.

Vado – Go

Venalitii – Slave Trader

Venator – Hunter

Vendidit – Sold

Veterani – Veterans

**Croatian to English**

Kiseli kupus – Sour cabbage

Sarma – Sour cabbage rolls


	8. Cast of Characters

          

#  **Cast of Characters**

I had a lot of fun Romanizing everyone’s names! Some of them are obvious. Others perhaps less so. In order of appearance, they are:

Jensen Akelsen of Cimbria AKA Venator – Jensen Ackles

Julius (Slave Market) – Julian Richings

Jared of Illyria AKA Colossus – Jared Padalecki

Misha – Misha Collins

Marcus Armentarius – Mark Sheppard

Ty – Ty Olsson

Malik – Charles Malik Whitfield

Benito AKA The Leviathan – Benito Martinez

Brunus AKA The Barbarian – Sterling Brown

Genevieve – Genevieve Cortese Padalecki

Senator Jamelus Patricio Stuatius – James Patrick Stuart

Alaina AKA Abaddon – Alaina Huffman

Alona – Alona Tal

Chadius – Chad Michael Murray

Marcus Pellegrino – Mark Pellegrino

Elta Danneldius Harrissius “Danni” – Danneel Harris Ackles

Cain – Timothy Omondson

Ramiel – Jerry Trimble

Alastarius Porcius Heveldius – Christopher Heyerdahl

_All other characters mentioned are OCs. Picture them as you will!_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you've enjoyed the story, I'd love to hear from you. :)
> 
> A huge thank you to my wonderful artist evian_fork who made me so much beautiful art and to my beta_reader Endless_Evalina who took time out from studying for exams to edit this for me. As always, I tinkered afterward, all remaining mistakes are my own. And finally, a huge thank you to Wendy for running this challenge yet again. What would we do without you? You really are the glue that holds this challenge together.


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